I got me some Demons

BrewDemon that is.

Several weeks ago BrewDemon finally started accepting orders and shipping product and I placed an order for the 2 gallon and 6 gallon recipes for their Wild Spirit IPA which is the old American Devil IPA from Mr. Beer. Yesterday I received the order!

I also ordered the kit with their conical fermenter that should arrive on Monday if the FedEx tracker is right!

Anyway I plan on brewing the 6 gallon recipe tomorrow, then doing the 2 gallon recipe once I get the new fermenter, then compare the 2 for taste. I will be posting a review of my BrewDemon experience once I have it all.

Cheers!

(Note: the picture of the fermenter is from the BrewDemon FaceBook page)

Damn false advertising. I was hoping we were going to have a good old fashioned exorcism. Can't remember the last time we had one of those.

Congrats! It's fun to get started. Enjoy the ride.
That's the cutest conical I've ever seen.

I'm thinking about getting the little conical fermenter for my 1 gallon brews, if I got them and the ferm caps I could easily bottle right after primary.

I have a Mr Beer Keg and other bottles and buckets, but conical looks nice. 25$ + 8$ shipping is a little steep though.

BridgewaterBrewer said:

I have a Mr Beer Keg and other bottles and buckets, but conical looks nice. 25$ + 8$ shipping is a little steep though.

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On the BrewDemon FaceBook page they were talking about giving people a free conical fermenter with $7 shipping but you would have to send them a piece of your Mr. Beer keg that would render it unusable! A lot of people expressed interest on that so BrewDemon is "working out the details" to make it happen!

My conical fermenter is supposed to be delivered today! As soon as I get it I plan to do a review, so I will let everyone know.

One of things I would really like to see if you could but a valve or spigot in the bottom to remove the trub! That would be nice and make it easy to harvest the yeast!

I finally got the fermenter! here are a pics of it. I will be posting more at http://www.beerborg.com/social if your interested!

I did check to see how much fluid it would take before reaching the bottom of the spigot and I was able to get 18oz of water. That should be able to hold just about any amount of trub that might collect for a 2 gallon batch!

Comparing the Mr. Beer LBK to the BrewDemon LBC (Little Brown Conical)


Conical with the "bubbler" option.


The whole Deluxe Kit with bottles, Signature recipe kit, bottle filler, spoon and instuctions!

I'm curious how you guys control the temps with those types of fermentors.
I have a Mr Beer fermentor that just sits there because I don't want to submerge the spigot. Not sure how I would ensure it was sanitized well enough on bottling day.
So I figure one of these days I'll use it for Belgians or maybe a lager since it would fit on a fridge shelf.

I've used the swamp cooler method. Put It in shallow tray with water and frozen water bottles to just below the spigot. Then drape a tshirt over it so it wicks the water up and stays damp and cool.

Hmmm...maybe I ought to get a fermometer for it and give it a try.

Do you use a fan as well?

Or you can just give it to me . But seriously I haven't used a fan but assume it would help. While we're on the topic of small fermenters, there are cheap 2.5 gal water dispensers at Walmart. They are clear, harder to clean, and more fragile than an LBK but i think a bit cheaper. http://www.arrowplastic.com/store/catalog.asp?item=30

BridgewaterBrewer said:

Or you can just give it to me . But seriously I haven't used a fan but assume it would help. While we're on the topic of small fermenters, there are cheap 2.5 gal water dispensers at Walmart. They are clear, harder to clean, and more fragile than an LBK but i think a bit cheaper. http://www.arrowplastic.com/store/catalog.asp?item=30

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We have bought several of those slimline containers to keep cold water in our fridge. The longest I've had one last in my fridge before starting to leak is about 6 months. They're about $5 but like you said they are fragile compared to he LBK which you can get from Mr. Beer for $10 plus shipping. But if you buy several things at the same time and get the $7 flat rate shipping it's not too bad a deal!

I did see a 3 gal Better bottle for about $18 at my LHBS.

Another option would be to watch craigslist! I got a whole Mr. Beer kit for free from a kid that was moving back home from college and didn't want it.

"I did see a 3 gal Better bottle for about $18 at my LHBS."

Great price! We just paid something like $24-25 for ours.

LouieMacGoo said:

We have bought several of those slimline containers to keep cold water in our fridge. The longest I've had one last in my fridge before starting to leak is about 6 months. They're about $5 but like you said they are fragile compared to he LBK which you can get from Mr. Beer for $10 plus shipping. But if you buy several things at the same time and get the $7 flat rate shipping it's not too bad a deal!

I did see a 3 gal Better bottle for about $18 at my LHBS.

Another option would be to watch craigslist! I got a whole Mr. Beer kit for free from a kid that was moving back home from college and didn't want it.

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Thanks for the tips LouieMacGoo. I've been wondering how long the slimline will last. I've heard of them cracking from others. Hopefully mine will last a few more weeks, since I just started a Sam Adams clone in one of them. I've been really close to getting another LBK but I can't really find anything else worth buying from Mr Beer, since the few things they have that I use I can get cheaper elsewhere. Also, the LBK doesn't quite fit a 2.5 gal batch with really full krausen; it's really for a 9 Qt batch. I do keep an eye out on craigslist and ebay for used fermenters. I'm also looking to scale up to 5 gal soon.

rodwha said:

I'm curious how you guys control the temps with those types of fermentors.
I have a Mr Beer fermentor that just sits there because I don't want to submerge the spigot. Not sure how I would ensure it was sanitized well enough on bottling day.
So I figure one of these days I'll use it for Belgians or maybe a lager since it would fit on a fridge shelf.

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One(two?) words: STARSAN. One of the things I like about the LBK is it fits perfectly on a closet shelf. So I ferment in a room that faces north and in the summer is always a few degrees cooler than the rest of the house. SO I don't usually need any drastic meaures. I don't do the swamp cooler method just for the reasons you state. I put the LBK in an igloo cooler, then put a frozen pop bottle or freezer block in there with it, ambient room temp is around 76, this method for me seems to keep the lbk at around 66. In the winter I don't usually have a problem, I feremnt around 64-66 degrees. If we have an unusually warm winter day (not uncommon in eastern NC), I'll take a freezer pack or frozen bottle, place it next to the lbk and wrap with towels. Works fine for me. Also I brew like a banshee when it's cold (I've got three lbks and a five gallon fermenter working non-stop right now) building up my pipeline for the summer. Then I'll use the lbks for smaller batches to replenish the stock (easier to maintain temps in the LBK). I just scale the recipe down to 2.5 gallons sizes. Hope this helps and HAPPY BREWING!

If anyone is interested in getting A BrewDemon Signature Kit check this out http://www.beerborg.com/index/2013/01/brew-like-a-demon-give-away/

Good Luck!

so can you give us a review of the conical. I am interested in trying this out for some small batches. But wanted to get an opinion from someone that had used it before hand

J-Malone said:

so can you give us a review of the conical. I am interested in trying this out for some small batches. But wanted to get an opinion from someone that had used it before hand

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Funny you should ask!

Review: BrewDemon Conical Fermenter

Once I have tasted the Wild Spirit IPA that I brewed with it I will be writing another review of the process and the brew itself.

Like Mr. Beer, but from the future?

Why couldn't you harvest the yeast from the spigot by just tilting it? Looks like a good design and a step up from the Mr. Beer fermenter.

I came here searching for information about the bottom of the conical. How easy would it be to drill out the bottom and place an additional spigot to use for yeast harvesting? I never thought about just tilting the conical to harvest.

They say the fermenter have a «Versatile CO2 Venting System» and that it comes with a venting Plug, so you do not need an airlock (they have a optionnal opening for placing one tough).

What exactly is that venting system?