Conical question

I was looking at some brew equipment and the SS conical fermentors caught my eye, they look really cool. Coolness aside, a 7 gallon SS unit is roughly 12 times more expensive than a glass carboy. I know they make recovering yeast and removing trub easier. But is there something else that they do that I am missing to make them worth their cost?

It's much harder to shatter stainless steel into shards and cut yourself.

Let's see, you covered the removing trub and extracting yeast...

The only other big one that I know of is that they completely shield your brew from UV light. Outside of the practical stuff above, I would add:

They look fricken cool
They make you feel like a pro
They cause envy in other homebrewers
You can check your hair in the reflection

You can clean them much better

There's a reason the pros use 'em.

I might add when you add all the feedback you've gotten so far, you can combine them to give you one big answer:

They allow you to more accurately duplicate your best recipes!!!

Much less variation.

I know.... I'm lusting after a couple myself........

Jonathan

drat said:

You can check your hair in the reflection

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I'm sold!

iubhdrw

You can check your hair in the reflection

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Or some of us would just see a reflection of a reflection of a reflection of...

How do you control the temp. with them. Especially in the summer months?

Wild Duk said:

How do you control the temp. with them. Especially in the summer months?

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Same methods you use with the plastic carboys (at least that's what I've seen done).

You can make a fermentation chamber from a free or dirt cheap fridge and a little modifications.

Plenty of them are here in in these forums.

I helped someone make a fermentation chamber with an air conditioner and a temperature controller (I think we used a Johnson Controls controller). That was a pretty good sized chamber. We were able to put six carboys on two shelves.

Tons of insulation, but it worked and continued to work "on the cheap". In the winter months, we did the reverse with a heater (same temp controls).

But, this is just a couple of options.

Jonathan

Wild Duk said:

How do you control the temp. with them. Especially in the summer months?

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upright freezer or refrigerator (most common, easy, medium cost, most bulky)

glycol coils and jacketing (DIY, difficult, cheapest cost, probably need a freezer anyway to chill the glycol but you might have space for a tub of glycol in a freezer you are already using)

morebeer.com cooled conical (most expensive, easy, least bulky)

Most people choose the first option which is also the most common option for controlling the temperature of a carboy (among people who have good temp control).