New conical set up, what do you think?

After much saving I am the proud new owner of a Brewhemoth conical. I had them do a couple of additions. I had a 1.5" ferule added to the back for a thermowell. I went with 4 legs instead of 3. I also went with stainless steal legs 1' longer than normal. They welded the posts for the legs far enough apart for a heating pad to fit.

After seeing all of the shiny polished keggles I decided to polish my Brewhemoth. It took the better part of a day to polish it and the legs, but it was worth it.




I hooked the chiller up to a submersible pump in a cooler. I freeze 2 and 1.5 liter bottles of water and put them in the cooler. It maintains a temp of 40 degrees.


At least I got an approval from my brew buddy!

very nice, my envy is at the moment annoying my wife. what is going in there first?

Bullets and beer! Winning combo. Nice can, looks great.

I made a CIP system from parts from Brewers Hardware and Amazon. I got a 5" stainless nipple and a 4" plate. I had a friend cut a hole in the plate with a plasma cutter and he welded the nipple halfway though the plate. I attached a street elbow on top and a spray ball on the bottom. I used a 1.2 horse trash pump in a bucket and a 1 1/4" hose to connect everything. It sprays everything well and works well with 3 gallons of oxyclean.




One day later I was able to empty nasty trub.



So what do you think? Any suggestions on my setup to make it better? In the future I want to put a glycol tank in the freezer of my kegorator.

By the way, there is no way I could be doing this without everyone on here. I started brewing less than 4 years ago. The learning that I have received in less than one year one being here greatly surpasses the other three years combined. My beer is better than ever and thanks to everyone here for that! Cheers!

runningweird said:

very nice, my envy is at the moment annoying my wife. what is going in there first?

Click to expand...

It is a cream ale with white labs 060 American Ale blend. It is ale and lager yeasts all together.

PoppinCaps said:

Bullets and beer! Winning combo. Nice can, looks great.

Click to expand...

That's my other hobby.

Very nice, you did a good job with the polishing

How does your chiller work?

Mpavlik22 said:

How does your chiller work?

Click to expand...

There is a stainless coil that is attached to the lid. A pump pumps cold water from the cooler into the coil which cools the fermenting beer. I have a temp controller controlling the pump.

How did you do the polish? Did you use bobbm's method? Also did you do any of the inside? I'm trying to figure out a dremel version to polish the bottom seem area on the inside. I can reach it but not sure what to use on the dremel somehow to do it.

Now that is sexy!

mwhc22 said:

How did you do the polish? Did you use bobbm's method? Also did you do any of the inside? I'm trying to figure out a dremel version to polish the bottom seem area on the inside. I can reach it but not sure what to use on the dremel somehow to do it.

Click to expand...

I used bobbm's method, it worked very well. I don't know how to do the inside.

My first beer has been fermenting now for 1 week. I made a simple yeast harvester out of 8" of 1.5 IS dia tubbing, 2 1.5" tri clover nipples, 2 1.5" caps, gaskets, and clamps. I figure that it is about $20 worth of parts.





It looks like I will be able to harvest a decent amount of WL060 American Ale Blend. Question, how long should I leave it connected before taking it off?

Thanks!

Once its full as it appears in the picture, I would disconnect it and store.

I might have missed this.... what size is the conical?

PS: that thing is freakin sweet!!!

It looks great, but why have an additional leg? Three legs can never wobble, 4 can. Were you concerned about strength?

Very cool idea with the harvester. Whats your storage plans for the yeast?

jtsims21 said:

I might have missed this.... what size is the conical?

PS: that thing is freakin sweet!!!

Click to expand...

It is 22 gallons. www.brewhemoth.com

MultumInParvo said:

It looks great, but why have an additional leg? Three legs can never wobble, 4 can. Were you concerned about strength?

Click to expand...

I wanted it to be 1" taller than normal and it was recommended to go with 4 legs. I have "felt" mine and a 3 leg one at their place. Mine is definitely more stable.

rmullins said:

Very cool idea with the harvester. Whats your storage plans for the yeast?

Click to expand...

I am going to put it in some sterilized canning jars.

I like it. Every time I see one of those brewhemoth conicals I want one. Yours is very nice looking.

cfrazier77 said:

My first beer has been fermenting now for 1 week. I made a simple yeast harvester out of 8" of 1.5 IS dia tubbing, 2 1.5" tri clover nipples, 2 1.5" caps, gaskets, and clamps. I figure that it is about $20 worth of parts.

It looks like I will be able to harvest a decent amount of WL060 American Ale Blend. Question, how long should I leave it connected before taking it off?

Thanks!

Click to expand...

I'm trying to piece together something similar do this, do you have a link to the site you got all of this from?

Brewershardware.com is where I would go to get everything. Glacier Tanks is another good place to go. I got the CIP pump from Ebay. Are there specifics that you are looking for?

cfrazier77 said:

Brewershardware.com is where I would go to get everything. Glacier Tanks is another good place to go. I got the CIP pump from Ebay. Are there specifics that you are looking for?

Click to expand...

You mentioned the yeast catcher parts were around $20. Could you piece together a quick shopping cart for that from one of those sites and post it here. I keep going over $30, so I may be selecting wrong parts.

I sent Bobby M a PM on parts. He said tomorrow he is going to be putting a bunch of individual parts on his sight tomorrow. So I will wait for that. Thanks.

Here is the parts list, I had most of these already.

I don't use this anymore, I will talk more about that at the end of this post.

http://www.brewershardware.com/1.5-Tri-Clover-X-1.5-Hose-Barb.html two of these, I had them already for cleaning.

http://www.brewershardware.com/1.5-Tri-Clover-Clamp.html two of these, I had them already.

http://www.brewershardware.com/1.5-Tri-Clover-Gasket-Silicone.html two of these.

http://www.brewershardware.com/1.5-Tri-Clover-Cap.html two of these.

A section of 1.5" ID reinforced vinyl hose, I used about 8 inches. Hardware store.

2 hose clamps, hardware store.

Here is what I do now which works much better. Instead of a hose use this.

http://www.brewershardware.com/1.5-Tri-Clover-Sight-Glass.html

I connect this sight tube to the brewhemoth. Then comes the butterfly valve. With the sight tube you can see when it is full of yeast. I spray the valve with star san, open up a sterilized mason jar, and then open the valve, fill the jar, pint size, and close the valve.

This works very well for me and wastes very little beer.



I have another valve above the sight tube but that does not need to be there.

That is a nice setup for sure, but I was hoping to do this on the cheap end. Since my setup has about 5 inches from the bottom of the conical opening to the valve, I'm tempted to do my first brew without a sight glass. Then after about 10 days, open it up a little, pour that into a sterilized quart jar, and then close the valve. Then add a side valve to my conical to siphon out the beer above that yeast line. At some point add a yeast catcher in the future.

Never really understood the advantage of a yeast catcher on a conical. If your planning on storing the yeast in a jar why not just dump from conical valve directly into your jar? One less item to clean and risk contamination. That's how I've done it and works out great. I guess its a matter of preference. I know when fermentation is done by checking the gravity and yeast will be patiently waiting in the cone for me to harvest.


MaxOut Brewstation

I agree that yeast catchers are not needed. I like having a sight glass though. Not as a yeast catcher, but so I can see when the yeast has dropped to pull it. If I brew a big 20 gallon beer the yeast will go above the dip tube. If it is a smaller size beer and I don't continually pull the yeast it gets stuck.

wanna show some more pictures of the cooling setup? I just ordered 3 conicals without cooling (not an option) and am trying to figure out the cooling coil placement/orientation.

cfrazier77 said:

I agree that yeast catchers are not needed. I like having a sight glass though. Not as a yeast catcher, but so I can see when the yeast has dropped to pull it. If I brew a big 20 gallon beer the yeast will go above the dip tube. If it is a smaller size beer and I don't continually pull the yeast it gets stuck.

Click to expand...

I agree the sight glass is useful. When I brew big lagers I can fill 4 quarts when harvesting yeast. Besides we as home brewers do a lot of things that would seem over done to many pro brewers. Cheers! Enjoy that pretty conical.


Sent from my iPhone using Home Brew

boat_eggs said:

wanna show some more pictures of the cooling setup? I just ordered 3 conicals without cooling (not an option) and am trying to figure out the cooling coil placement/orientation.

Click to expand...

What kind of conicals did you get? If you are going to add a custom internal coil chiller make sure that you have enough of it to cool the lowest level you will ferment at, i.e. 5 gallons. You want more coils above that also for bigger batches.

When fermenting you just need to run cold water through the coil, or warm water to raise temps. I use a cooler with frozen ice bottles, it works well for me. I have a submersible pond pump that is controlled by a temp controller. It turns it on when the temp gets to high and shuts it off when the desired temp is hit.
Here are some pics I had of it. I am in the process of moving right now so I can't take more for a while. In the last one you can see how well it works with the condensation line on the tank.









I hope this helps.

MaxOut said:

I agree the sight glass is useful. When I brew big lagers I can fill 4 quarts when harvesting yeast. Besides we as home brewers do a lot of things that would seem over done to many pro brewers. Cheers! Enjoy that pretty conical.


Sent from my iPhone using Home Brew

Click to expand...

Thanks, I agree again that on the surface we seem to over do things compared to pro brewers. However, if they lose a gallon or two from yeast dumping from a 7 barrel fermentor that is not that bad. If I loose a half gallon from a 5 gallon batch that is 1/10 of the sweet nectar that I don't get to drink. It is ok for us to go a little overboard to minimize loss.

I got a set of 3 14 gallon fermentors form the bru gear kickstarter, too good of a deal to pass up. Once I get them I will measure the top opening (3" TC) for length to the coiling point for 5 gallons and get some coils that are stretched up to the 10 gallon park. Still not sure if I will put the coils through the TC or the lid. I am going to use a heat pad on the bottom for heating ( not that important where I live).

I really like your basic cooling method! I was planning on doing some logic controller and valves and whatnot but after seeing yours I feel like i can put that project off for a while.

Thanks for the info

http://www.stainlessbrewing.com/ can make you a chiller coil welded into a 3" cap. I would go with the cap instead of the lid. It is much easier to take it out and clean it.

cfrazier77 said:

Thanks, I agree again that on the surface we seem to over do things compared to pro brewers. However, if they lose a gallon or two from yeast dumping from a 7 barrel fermentor that is not that bad. If I loose a half gallon from a 5 gallon batch that is 1/10 of the sweet nectar that I don't get to drink. It is ok for us to go a little overboard to minimize loss.

Click to expand...

I harvest as much as 1 gallon yeast at a time directly from the cone of my 30 gallon fermenter and rarely loose more than a few ounces of beer. If I was really concerned I could decant it back into the fermenter with little chance of infecting harvested yeast or beer.

If your yeast catcher is too small you will have to empty, clean, re sanitize and re install. You will have to repeat this process until you eventually end up with a yeast beer mix in your yeast catcher. If it's too big you will end up with a yeast beer mix on the first run (better to be to big in my opinion because less chance of infecting the yeast your trying to harvest). The only problem is the amount of yeast will vary greatly. So not sure how a yeast catcher offers much of an advantage verses risk even at a home brewers level. Besides most pro brewers should be even more concerned about loss. That being said my point about overdoing it is sometimes it's for good reason and sometimes it's just overdoing it. We are all guilty of it in our quest to make that perfect beer and build innovative gadgets to get there. Ultimately that is the fun of it for me.



MaxOut Brewstationle

Is the condensation line in the last picture the 10g mark? What kind of cooling range do you have from ambient?

cfrazier77 said:

What kind of conicals did you get? If you are going to add a custom internal coil chiller make sure that you have enough of it to cool the lowest level you will ferment at, i.e. 5 gallons. You want more coils above that also for bigger batches.

When fermenting you just need to run cold water through the coil, or warm water to raise temps. I use a cooler with frozen ice bottles, it works well for me. I have a submersible pond pump that is controlled by a temp controller. It turns it on when the temp gets to high and shuts it off when the desired temp is hit.
Here are some pics I had of it. I am in the process of moving right now so I can't take more for a while. In the last one you can see how well it works with the condensation line on the tank.









I hope this helps.

Click to expand...

I think that line was 8 or 9 gallons. I am not 100% for sure. The lowest I can get it with my current setup is 40 degrees and that is when the basement is in the 50s. I cover it with an old sleeping bag and change out the cooler full of frozen water bottles twice a day. I do that to cold crash at the ferment. Normally I can drop it 20 degrees below ambient, but the lower the ambient temperature is the less I can drop it. The temp of the water going through the coil is 34 so the closer you get to that the less efficient it becomes. If I wanted to cool better so I could do lagers, I would cover it with dense foam self adhesive insulation. But, I have a fridge for lagers.