New brewery's first outing

[Scooby]

It's the most I've spent on any brew gear but it's very good quality, whether it's good value or not is a personal thing but so far I would rate it as good an upgrade if not better than going from plastic keg/s30 to a cornie/Co2 system

[Seveneer]

I'm impressed with the cold break comparison too. I'm looking lovingly at the Blichman conicals and I now have the go-ahead.

I pulled a bit of a fast one on my good lady in that I put in for approval of 2 conicals and was negotiated down to 1.

Might make a hopback too

/Phil.

[Scooby]

Excellent Seveneer, I'm sure you won't regret it

As well as being able to drop the break I've just removed a small amount of dead yeast cells, apparently the live yeast in suspension then becomes more active

[Frothy]

awesome scoob
How did you fashion the outlet in the hop-back? I made one
very similar to your filter version. I thought it would work with a
hop bag in it but the flow is terrible. Although saying that getting my pump primed is a bit of a nightmare anyway.

Frothy

[Scooby]

It's a fairly simple copper manifold with 3mm holes Frothy.






I haven't noticed any difference in the flow rate but I guess it must be slightly slower

[Scooby]

It's been about a week now so have dropped some yeast. The bottom outlet is a 3/4" ball valve so sanitised it and cracked it open slowly, nothing.... then a bit more... and a bit more... almost fully open... nothing then like sausage from a machine out slid a plug of yeast and then whoosh..... tap closed rapido

The yeast was really clean, I had thought it may layer with some crud first and the good stuff in the middle, I only had to devide it into 3 containers and cover with water

I drew off a little more for sampling, gravity etc and added some aux finings and a squirt of Co2 then lid back on for another week

I think conical and I are going to get on fine

[DRB]

Nothing like it when a plan comes together .

[Scooby]

While they may not be essential, conicals are really handy (and very cool from an anorak brewers perspective)....I may have to buy a new house so I can fit one in

The one I have is for a 5gal US batch size and is very compact being only 12" Dia so has a much smaller foot print than traditional FV that are around 15" dia.

It also looks much better next to the TV in the sitting room

Off out now just got to get my anorak

[Andy]

Ant Hayes knows someone in South Africa who had a plastics manufacturer make up a conical moulding.....Just need to sort out shipping