home made conical

So, I had a thought..
How hard would it be to put together a home brewed conical fermenter? You could get a keg and use a plasma cutter to remove the bottom. Then have a metal fabricator or perhaps even a local welder put together a cone and have it welded on the bottom of the keg.

If the keg only costs 20 bucks I that leaves at least another $100 to spend getting the rest of it fabricated and welded before the project becomes cost prohibitive. Does anyone see any big problems with this project? I may just try it this summer when I've got a bit more free time....

You could have a 15 gallon + conical (or less if you cut the keg in half). That would leave you just about the right amount of room for a 12 or 13 gallon batch of beer. I suppose you could do a much smaller batch in it (7gallons?) if you purged it first with co2.. I wonder how you could go about cooling it? Do they make external cooling conversion kits?

Thoughts?

I dunno if the welder will be able to bend the thickness you are going to need to match up with the metel of the keg. What is that stuff 1/8 of an inch thick?

Not sure how much steel like that would cost you either or where you might get it.

Plus ya got the valves ya need to get on the bottom and the lid needs to seal pretty well . . .

I dunno if it's something I would try but I hope it works out for ya

20 years ago, welding cost $1 per inch, stainless was about $3 per pound. You do the math, and don't forget inflation. 22 gauge would suffice, you'll need about 12 sq/ft, a web search will find the weight per s/ft.

Or start with one of these conical hoppers

you need the inside to be pretty damn smooth or you'll have all kinds of tiny homes for bacteria and other undesirables... i imagine this would be difficult to achieve when welding from the outside...

Lou said:

you need the inside to be pretty damn smooth or you'll have all kinds of tiny homes for bacteria and other undesirables... i imagine this would be difficult to achieve when welding from the outside...

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yea, you'd have to find a welder that is certified for sanitary welds (I think that is the term, something like that).

I say go with a prefab conical hopper and go from there. As far as cooling, I use an immersion coil that is inside the tank. It works really well and was easy to construct. You can see them in this picture. In the picture they are upside down. I run glycol out of the chiller on the right, but there are other options. These conicals were built out of Toledo Metal Spinning conical hoppers.

That picture makes me want to cry! Finally I have a purpose in life.

Maestro Brewsmith said:

I have a purpose in life.

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You found your special purpose?!? NAVIN R. JOHNSON!!!!!!!!