Bought Willis 100L jacketed Conical

[bigrichlock]

Well bought one then took it back for a refund.

First off i would just like to say Willis European were brilliant on the customer service front, no moans no grips they just gave me a refund.

I have to admit that all the equipment i have has been fabricated in the UK to a much hire standard, and i should have more closely inspected the conical before i purchased it, i looked at the display one which look OK but needed a good clean and though the same about the one i bought, i got a second opinion and got rapidly corrected.

so what were the issues, and these are common to all the fermenters i looked at.

1) quality of the welds of all fittings - minor floors
2) Coking through of welds - legs and cooling jackets - thix means the weld has gone through from the out side and leaves a hole full of carbon deposit impossible to clean
3) weld splatter on the inside of the fermenter
4) ground back seem welds with flaws
5) Welds on racking arm have serious coking on the inside of the tube - easily fixed by flushing in side of racking arm tube with argon

I have some pics will try and up load them in next couple of days.

This may just be me as they have never had a complaint about these conicals before.

All the above is correctable at a cost but is made difficult as you have to cut the top of the fermenter off, which has been stressed by welding on the cooling jacket so not really doable.

The really annoying thing is that these are nearly fantastic, but as a perfectionist the conical was not for me.

So where to go from here? Well i have come to the conclusion im after conicals that i can do double batches in i.e. 240L plus head space?

Getting a conical spun or rolled in the UK seems almost impossible (not giving up quite yet tho), so im thinking a 27G Blitchmann conical and getting all the fittings welded and an extension welded in to it?

From what i have seen and calculated this looks to be the cheapest (and its not cheep) option which guarantees the best quality finish, anyone have other ideas?

Rich

[barneey]

I know you already have a morebeer one which is far ahead of the Willis in terms of quality......

What about http://www.toledometalspinning.com/pdfs/TMS24914.pdf http://www.toledometalspinning.com/meta ... price-list

http://www.toledometalspinning.com/ and asking them to make something BIG?

[Highlander]

how about one of these beauties
http://www.brewershardware.com/Conical-Fermenters/

I can't speak first hand, but having dealt with these guys in the past I fully expect they will be top notch.

[bigrichlock]

I have emailed Torledo Metal Spinning and the 24inch hoppers are cheep (relatively), the expensive bit is getting them into the country - postage is a killer.

Postage and import tax will be upwards of 550 quid ish +450 for the two 24inch conical cones.

Brewers hardware conicals look good but from what i can see they only post the small ones to the UK. and yep ur right there stuff is good quality.

If you just get the cones from TMS you then need something like a 500mm man-way or some sort of lid and ideally it needs to seal able and pressurisable as well as fabricating to reduce down to 500mm from 24 inch, so this is all adding cost. Another reason for the large may way is to give access for cleaning as well as fabrication.

So its now a costing exercise import a cone or 2 from TMS and then have bigger fabrication costs or go for a Blitchmann and have a bog standard cut and shut job.

decisions decisions

Cheers

[barneey]

I did come up with a helpful solution to the problem when speaking to Highlander the other week (strangely enough) about taking conicals on planes......

BTW I've over come your shipping problem with the conical........... I would exchange the axe for a mash paddle though.



Failing that this might be better although you would have to ask for assistance getting up the stairs to board the flight.......... and seeing out might be problematic

[barneey]

Your other avenue is Mark aka MrLard to see if he has anything in your size, don't think that you live all that far apart either?

[darkonnis]

The big question is: why do you want a conical? I have one and having debated buying more, but I'm not going to bother and am instead going for 18 gallon kegs or 100L pots. Unless you want to drop trub out of the bottom or yeast there is absolutely no point to a conical, it doesnt do anything extra outside of that. They look nice, and they are fancy and they are expensive but the beer you get out... isn't too disimilar to the beer you get out of a pot... hell if you look at pro-brewer the "best" tanks are flat bottom tanks (like a youngs fv bucket) in terms of the beer produced. Conicals literally only come into their own for the above reasons...

Not being a dick or even pissing on the conical dream, but having now looked at mine and the problems its causing me i can't help but try and atleast offer realistic advice. Would a pressurisable FV or a FV which could act as a pressure vessel not be a better option given the costs involved?

[Fil]

bigrichlock bad luck, but good job u caught it now instead of realising months down the road..

there is a bottom drain 120l ss pressure vessel on ebay for £50 currently, well last time i peeked last night (herts iirc), search auctions for 'Stainless steel pressure cooker'.. bet barneey picks it up

[barneey]

Its a fair point, there is another idea I`ve thought of but due to my determination NOT to buy or build anything else (apart from another grain mill) I`m NOT going to pursue the idea any further but in my opinion would make a nice jacketed fermenter.....

The 160ltr thermo pot, either kept as it is with an internal cooling / heating coil or by removing the insulation between the two skins (foam eater) and sliding a purpose made coil in the void, you would need to cut of the outer bottom for the idea to work and make another. With careful measurement the coil could be wound onto the inner surface of the pot, again hook up a cool / heat through the pipework and your very own jacketed 160ltr fermenter for approx. £250 all in

If someone would like to sponsor the idea let me know

Cheers

[barneey]

bigrichlock bad luck, but good job u caught it now instead of realising months down the road..

there is a bottom drain 120l ss pressure vessel on ebay for £50 currently, well last time i peeked last night (herts iirc), search auctions for 'Stainless steel pressure cooker'.. bet barneey picks it up

I`m in the selling market sell sell sell

[bigrichlock]

The reasoning behind conicals.

From the somewhat extensive beer tasting i have been doing the most hop forward beers currently being brewed in the UK are by breweries using conicals. They are achieving this for the follow reasons.

-Trub can be dumped - trub absorbs hop oils
-Yeast can be dumped - its widely accepted that yeast absorb hop oils, removing the yeast improves hop aroma and flavor, yeast can also be harvested
-Pellet dry hops can be dumped allowing multiple dry hops, with previous hops being dumped the conical also allows you to use CO2 to get the hops back in to suspension with out oxygenating the beer.

Are the above going to massive affect the final beer may be not, but combined i think they do, and being able to drop dryhops out before adding more is a def bonus considering the latest research being done on hop oil extraction vs hop contact time.

I am currently using a mixture of a Morebeer conical, 150L flat bottomed stainless fermenters, bergland pots and on occasion a 25L plastic bucket. the conical is by far the winner on all accounts, hence my continued search.

Cheers

Rich

[Aleman]

The 160ltr thermo pot

You know you are not going to buy anything else . . . I'm trying desperately to do the same, and then you post the things you do

Time to send yet another email to mrlard

[barneey]

well if you live without the conical part for the capacity its got to be the cheapest option for something stainless.

[scotia]

I built these 60deg conicals for a guy down the road a wee bit bigger than you want 1250 dia down to 50 dia. I formed the cones on two parts then pressed 1 deg folds in the brake press (radial line development) I am sure you could do similar in 1.5 thick by breaking the sheet over a bar and rubber mallet, time consuming but achievable. I formed a reverse cone exhaust for my Triumph many years ago using an old oar.

[jmc]

bigrichlock bad luck, but good job u caught it now instead of realising months down the road..

there is a bottom drain 120l ss pressure vessel on ebay for £50 currently, well last time i peeked last night (herts iirc), search auctions for 'Stainless steel pressure cooker'.. bet barneey picks it up

Interesting bit of kit

No pic on eBay, but I think it may be this, or a slightly smaller version.