Stainless Conical Budget of £500 to £800 Best One

[barneey]

Deller, there are 3 little triangles welded to the inside of the stand from what I saw. They match the angle of the cone and stop it being a victim of gravity (Though I may stand corrected yet)

Yep quite correct on the inside of the legs are 3 plastic style supports that wedge the conical in place.

As for the size its the US 14 gallon one, so should get 2 cornie kegs out of it, as for control (one of the main reasons for not buying the larger 27 gallon ones) was that it will still just about fit in the larder fridge, failing that I have the gnutz cyclinders

The welds are not ground off as pointed out, but are of a good quality and easy cleanable, it was that or have a screw thread Blichmann design I think idf your afer the ground off welds the "Stout" one offer that service

Cheers

[Deller12]

Deller, there are 3 little triangles welded to the inside of the stand from what I saw. They match the angle of the cone and stop it being a victim of gravity (Though I may stand corrected yet)

Yep quite correct on the inside of the legs are 3 plastic style supports that wedge the conical in place.

As for the size its the US 14 gallon one, so should get 2 cornie kegs out of it, as for control (one of the main reasons for not buying the larger 27 gallon ones) was that it will still just about fit in the larder fridge, failing that I have the gnutz cyclinders

The welds are not ground off as pointed out, but are of a good quality and easy cleanable, it was that or have a screw thread Blichmann design I think idf your afer the ground off welds the "Stout" one offer that service

Cheers

Ah that's explains it does the top half of the conical come off ?

[barneey]

Yep in the first and second photo, where you can see the orange sealing rubber, the two parts come apart, they are held together in operation via the clamp band, so like my last conical very easy to clean. The last photo in the sequence shows the underside of the conical lid with the 3" fitting and pressure relief valve.

As part of the setup tho I have also ordered a spray ball with tri clover fitting, which will be the final clean / spray with starsan once the whole conical is put together.

Also went a little mad when ordering the last few bits and bought the Rims tube for step mashing / inline aeration use, thought I would try the 3" filter tube and finally a load more tri clover fittings for the cold side of things, basically from the boiler onwards.

Just need to sell a few more things to pay for it all now. but having been messing around with a setup for the last year plus, thought I would do this last step before saying enough is enough.

Edit have now just fitted the blow off tube to finish the assembly.

[bigrichlock]

Looking at the Brewers Warehouse web site the TriClover fittings are about the same price as the Cam locks that people have been going for on here, and the postage is only a few quid more, well may be 15 quid.

I got to admit i liked the 3inch filer so much i have just bought one too.

Which size RIMS tube did you go for? the only thing that put me off was the element sizes, being more US sizes? I ended up getting one fabricated to take a standard 2.25bsp element, although it is a 30inch long 6kw one, ive built it to do stepped mash's with a 120L mash tun, will post some pics when i get home in 10 days time.

Am liking the Conical, will be interesting to see a comparison when the jacketed Willis ones make it in to the country.

Rich

[barneey]

The Rims tube was the 1.5" one, with an adapter to take a 1" NPT (near enough BSP- slight dim. difference) threaded element + other end a tri clover fitting to a standard tri clover thermowell.

The threaded 1" heating elements are the cartridge type ones as mention by Aleman in another post.

For dual purpose, I will replace the threaded element fiiting with a tri clover airstone for the in line aeration application.

I plan to use a March pump with tri clover fittings + a sample valve (bleed valve to prime), this pump will also be dual purpose (Rims & Cold Side).

As I already have the camlocks (with the increased bored flow) I will continue to use these pre boil.

Cheers

As for the WIllis conicals with a jackets, yep it will / would be nice to see them eventually My conical journey is however now over.

[gregorach]

Ooh, sexy!

[Kev888]

Indeed!

having looked into welds and welding recently I'd be quite happy with yours because although they're a tad proud of the surface they're quite rounded and largely free of crevices, concave bits or sharp internal corners which is where the nasties can lurk. And theres no danger of having been ground too thin either, posing a weakness over time.

I also know from experience that its possible to make a cack-handed weld look nice by grinding it down and polishing, but as was pointed out in another thread if you grind it theres a risk of exposing any inclusions within it, which can offer a weak point for the metal to be attacked.

I'm not saying the stout's ground and polished welds are in any way bad and they certainly look real quality jobs, its just that more generally you have to trust whoever made them, whereas yours have been left alone so you can tell they're good ones to begin with.

Cheers
Kev

[barneey]

Just a quick update used the conical yesterday for the first time.

Thoughts so far very easy to use and clean the tri clover fittings, so am glad I have them.

The sample valve leaks / drips, nothing I can do about it due to the conical being full , was told by the supplier to use keg lube on the O ring to see if that sorts the problem out.

Blow off tube, rather than buy the overprice kit sold by the supplier, I simply purchased a "T" piece + hosetail and used my own silicone hose, this is working well, at the moment it sounds as tho there is a frog in the fridge + should prevent any nasty spills.

Oxygen, I`m still waiting for my other parts from another supplier (rims / oxygen tube setup) so just used the "dangle the tube" in the fermenter method, seems to have worked well + helped by only having a small outlet at the top of the vessel rather than a large open area.

So apart from the slight leak, I`m happy with the setup.



http://youtu.be/H8uJJDRtK4w

[Kev888]

Certainly looks in a different league to the picture of your last conical in there..

Cheers
Kev

[barneey]

Yep better build quality, will it make better beer? Very much doubt it , but it will improve my technique and brew day.

Only thing a do miss though is the extra space of the old conical, it was a tight fit of 42ltrs (2kegs & bottles) worth, hence the blowoff tube.

[gnutz2]

Yep better build quality, will it make better beer? Very much doubt it , but it will improve my technique and brew day.

Only thing a do miss though is the extra space of the old conical, it was a tight fit of 42ltrs (2kegs & bottles) worth, hence the blowoff tube.

Thats no downside, think of all the fresh yeast you'll have.

[Highlander]

wow, looks realy good. Sounds like your happy with it.
Can I ask how much it was,
You don;t need to scare me with the cost of the triclovers. Let me know how the filter works out. thats what i'm really interested in just now.

[barneey]

For upto date prices have a look at the morebeer website + there is a 10% code floating around for anything else triclover wise I would look in the brewershardware direction they are much cheaper.

What is interesting tho more beer have just started selling blichmann stuff! Even with shipping + import its more than likely to be cheaper than a UK supplier.

[barneey]

Just a quick update, finally got around to kegging the maiden brew over the weekend using CO2 pressure to pump from conical to keg, overall made the operation very easy to do and control the flow of liquid (rather than the previous keg on the slant fill, hold with 1 hand control the ballvalve with the other hand method )

[Kev888]

Good stuff! I'm envious; shiny aside, thats the main thing my plastic one won't let me do.

Cheers
Kev