DIY Chilled Conical/Keg Fermenter

Some of you may remember my last DIY conical thread. The old design worked great, but there really wasn't a practical way to get it to hold pressure (for transferring the contents without a pump or gravity). Well, here's the solution!

Parts:
1/2 bbl keg (thanks again, Boston!)
TMS Conical Hopper (21 gal)
Corny lid
Corny post fitting
Gas-in post
Ball valve/fitting for dump/transfer (not shown in this post)

Assemble as shown below. The keg is upside down because the bottom of the keg had no ridges to interrupt the Corny lid seal. I've pressure tested it to 10 psi with no issues at all. The total volume is 18 gallons.





I'm going to use the rest of the TMS hopper to make a cooling jacket around the straight sides of the keg. My old kegerator will serve as the glycol chiller.

Expect progress to be painfully slow (as has been the case with most of my projects over the past year). I've gotten pretty busy! I promise to keep the thread updated as the project unfolds.

That is one of the coolest things I have ever seen!!!

Yuri,

Is the conical hopper Tig welded to the keg? Nice project!

Yes. All of the welding was done with my TIG machine.

More picts! That thing is freeken KILLER!

Yuri
If you used a 21 gallon hopper from TMS + a 15.5 gallon keg. How is this only 18 gallons? Am I missing something?

Yuri_Rage said:

Yes. All of the welding was done with my TIG machine.

Click to expand...

Thanks Yuri. Oh well, another project that I would like to build that will become a pipe dream because I don't know how to TIG weld. I have a Miller MIG machine here at home that I used to build my BBQ smoker but TIG is another matter. That adult education welding class is starting to look interesting now.

Good heavens, it's alive!!

Jay, I cut the bottom 12" of the big hopper off and welded it to the keg. That portion holds about 2.5 gallons. The rest of the hopper will become the cooling jacket.

That's awesome! I'm impressed. Make sure you keep us posted on the cooling jacket, too.

Yuri_Rage said:

Jay, I cut the bottom 12" of the big hopper off and welded it to the keg. That portion holds about 2.5 gallons. The rest of the hopper will become the cooling jacket.

Click to expand...

Ahh, I see. Dude that's killer! What a great idea. So are you going to have a glycol cooling system? I like where this is going Yuri.

Yea buddy!

You are planning on doing the glycol cooling jacket on the ouside of the unit, with a layer of insulation and another of stainless wrapping?

Thread subscribbled!

The cooling jacket will be the outer layer. I plan powder coating the jacket with a shiny copper/metallic color to provide some bling factor and minimal insulation. If that proves inadequate (likely), I'll wrap it with some foam and maybe a thin aluminum skin with the same color scheme.

My vision is a bit grandiose...I just hope I can find the time to finish it!

Hey Yuri,

Is there any way we could get a picture of cone? This is an awesome, beautiful thing! I just wanted also say that this gives us another reason to hate you !


Great job brutha!

John

Old Dominion Brewery! That's great! I have had many a pint in that brewpub. Unfortunately their success came with a price, Budweiser made them an offer they couldn't refuse. Strange to see one of their kegs all the way out in Texas. Man they made some great beer!

Thanks for the memories!

I need to learn how to weld.... awesome

I've gotten a little more done. The jacket makes it look a little like a rocket ship from a bad 60's movie. It needs one more major piece to seal up the jacket, but you probably get the idea now.

Keep it comin' this is a cool project. Definitely makes me want to learn to TIG weld.
Out of curiosity, how did you cut the hopper in half? I'm trying to imagine an easy way to make a straight cut around a circular object. I'm sure there's an easy way, but it's not occuring to me.
Awesome work, Yuri.

Wow, I always wanted to do this exact thing. I'm watching the master at work here .

Damn you Yuri!!!

Dont post pics/ideas on your new creations until they're done!!! I want to see the whole thing now!!

Looks awesome though, I envy your fabrication abilities.

Yuri
The fermentor looks very cool. Do you think the corny post could get clogged with krausen or will there be another venting port?

I can't wait to see the finished product!

Any progress? Are you planning on putting any baffles in the jacket to ensure good flow around the entire fermenter?

No progress just yet. This project may be going in a different direction. I'll post updates as I get it figured out.

Yuri_Rage said:

This project may be going in a different direction.

Click to expand...

You goin all the way and turning it into a rocket ship? Is the direction you're heading Mars???

Seriously though, it looks great. Were you able to inspect the welds on the inside around the cone? seems like that would be tough, going through the rather small hole for the corney lid.

Here's my plan for extracting fermented goodness without adding welded ports and fittings to the body of the fermenter itself:



I think I'll have some more to post soon.

Are you still putting a dump valve on the bottom?

Looks good Yuri, Is there a bit of a lip around the lid, or is that an illusion from the photo?

Yes, there'll be a dump valve. Otherwise, what's the point of a conical?

There's a bit of a lip, but that's only because it was pre-existing, and I cut carefully to preserve a bit of it.

Nice! 10 char

Yuri
Where do you find threaded fittings etc to make corny posts where you want them?

Northern Brewer has them. I machine the NPT threads out of them before welding. For the liquid out side, I bore the inner diameter to accept a dip tube and part off the o-ring collar.

http://www.northernbrewer.com/brewing/adapter-for-corny-plugs-1-4-ffl-x-19-32-18.html

Two more pics to help illustrate (the adapters started out as identical parts):

So Yuri, what are your plans for the cooling unit?

Good to know. I wondered if these were for gas only, or if they worked with dip tubes, etc. The web description is sort of vague. With corny posts being kind of finicky between kegs, etc. I figured a "universal" one would be difficult to do.

After doing a little math on the volume of glycol required for that hefty jacket and resulting cooling system, I decided to do something different. I think I have it figured out, but I'm not quite done ironing out the details. For now, here's what it looks like:

Yuri_Rage said:

After doing a little math on the volume of glycol required for that hefty jacket and resulting cooling system, I decided to do something different. I think I have it figured out, but I'm not quite done ironing out the details. [/IMG]

Click to expand...

What were you considering originally for the cooling system? The cooling requirement is based on the heat load, not necessarily the volume of water/glycol.

I'd like to do something similar but don't know the formulas to properly size the cooling system.

Sure, the cooling requirement alone is based on heat dissipation, but the cost requirement for 30-40 gallons of glycol is a bit astronomical. Even the cheap stuff for winterizing RVs is expensive when you're buying that much of it. If I could've kept the quantity to about half that, I would've kept going with the other design. However, I didn't want to do THAT much welding.

Yowsa! Even heavily diluted, that's still a lotta jack.

Slight progress:

Looks great, very pro. Can't wait to see it polished up and ready for action.