I want a conical fermenter, but boil in garage and ferment in basement. Any suggesti

Hello all,

I just came into some unexpected cash and want to buy myself a present, a Blichman 14gal Conical. The biggest issue is that I normally boil in the garage and ferment in the basement (steady temp).

Wife does not allow me to boil indoors so that is out of the question.

Does anyone have a similar situation or recommendation? I was even thinking of running a 10' line from the garage through the wall into the basement to transfer from one to the other. Line would only be put in place to transfer and removed/cleaned after each use. I ran new 110 and 220 circuits into the garage last year and would just drill a 1" hole through the same header.

Thanks,

Jeff

Sounds like the best thought-out solution. Run from the kettle through your chiller, down the tubing into the conical!

Heck, I'd just run a stainless line with valves on the ends that you could leave in place. That would be slick.

Why make it complicated? Just transfer a few gallons at a time in a sanitized pail. Added points for aeration.

I brew the same way, I simply cool the wort in the garage then carry the boil kettle downstairs and drain into my conical.

pipe it, but build it as a CFC

10 gallon boils can be heavy and the thought of dropping it down the stairs, ouch!.

If I hard lined it how would I clean it?

That's easy. Just put some PBW/StarSan in your kettle and pump it down to the fermentor.

jcwalsh said:

Wife does not allow me to boil indoors so that is out of the question.

Does anyone have a similar situation or recommendation?
Jeff

Click to expand...

Shovel and a bag of lime?

Push pbw through it then hot water.

To clean hard piping, you should recirculate a hot alkaline cleaner through it for at least 10 min. At the brewpubs I worked at, we had two lines hard piped to transfer beer from fermentation to storage. One line would be for the transfer and the other for recirculation. Just take the hose and jumper from one pipe to the other.

You will need a pump and container for the cleaner. This could be expanded to also be used to clean a CFC chiller. Having a drain near the fermenter would be a very big help when it comes time to drain the cleaner out.

Do you keg? If so you could move the wort from chiller to fermentor in sanitized kegs.

RonRock said:

Do you keg? If so you could move the wort from chiller to fermentor in sanitized kegs.

Click to expand...

It's silly to spend hundreds of dollars to make your life harder.

I like the CFC idea, you could run concentric pipe the whole way. To clean you system, you could just reroute the beer pipe through you coolant pipe (after isolating the fermenter of course) and back into your equipment and pump your cleaning solution through it.

If this was me, I would pop in a hole and cover it with a spring loaded door or something. Next I would secure a canning sized pressure cooker and X+2 or 3 feet of silicon tubing where X is the needed distance to the conical from the BK. Add in some stainless quick disconnects.

ALL life stops living at temps above 225 F. Silicon tubing is rated for 500 F. The pressure cooker @ 15 psi should be about 240-250 F. The tubing should never need replaced. My thought on long tubing is sanitized is good but sterilized is better.

The best sources for silicone tubing I have found are Bargainfittings.com / Rebel brewer / US Plastics and I would recommend them in that same order.

The very last item to add is a piece of pipe with a small hole in the wall. The hole will be nearest the silicon tubing and the "pipe" should fit snugly into the silicon tubing. As the wort rushes into the pipe the Venturi effect will pull air in through the hole and force it into the wort. This is as good of aeration as you can achieve without an O2 stone for the cost of a 8 inch piece of pipe...This pipe is added to the end of tubing right before it enters the conical.

remilard said:

It's silly to spend hundreds of dollars to make your life harder.

Click to expand...

Can you explain this remark? If the OP already kegs there is no cost with this solution.

Cornies are easier and safer to carry than carboys as well.

I do keg, but one of the main points in getting the conical is reducing transfers and possible exposure.

If the conical arrives before I have time to run tubing I will use the cornys to transfer.

I fully understand. I am in the same position. I have also considered the tubing, but the clean and sanitize issue has been a deal breaker for me. Some good suggestions here though. I may have to reconsider.

I boil in the garage and ferment in a 1/2 barrel keg fermenter, which is in the basement.
I make several trips using a sanitized bucket. Easy on the back and like another poster mentioned, better for aeration. I considered using a sanitized length of silicon tubing, but figured that keeping the bucket sanitized would be easier than sanitizing the tubing.

RonRock said:

Can you explain this remark? If the OP already kegs there is no cost with this solution.

Cornies are easier and safer to carry than carboys as well.

Click to expand...

The conical costs hundreds of dollars. Cleaning and sanitizing two extra kegs for each batch is more work than rinsing yeast and racking off of trub which is what you would have to do with carboys to get the same benefits as the conical. So you have spent a lot of money to do more work for the same benefit.

Pumping from the kettle to the conical eliminates cleaning and sanitizing two kegs for no good reason and changes the equation substantially.

I'd ask why do you want a conical. Having used one for awhile I only see a benefit if I want to reuse the yeast while the beer still sits in the tank. Since I don't do that, I switched to corny keg fermenting.

If you do go for the conical I'd just run some silicone tubing. $2/foot

It appears the OP brews to get a full 10 gallons. That would require 3 corny kegs. Extra cleaning and sanitizing would also be required, not to mention carrying the kegs around. A single 14.5 gallon fermenter would do the same thing.

Possibly, a lesser expensive alternative would be to ferment in a Sanke keg. You could use the transfer methods discussed in this thread and a Sanke fermerter kit from Brewers Hardware



Sanke Fermenter Kits

One of the major benefits of a conical is that it is less work. So to have to do things that add work doesn't make sense to me.

• Hard piping requires a cleaning regimen to ensure it is clean and sanitary.
• Shuttling the beer in kegs or pails means you have to sanitize/clean the kegs before and after.

I personally like simple solutions and would use beer hose to transfer the wort from the kettle to your fermenter in the basement. This will be the easiest with respect to cleaning and sanitizing.

Cheers,

John
Stout Tanks and Kettles
www.conical-fermenter.com

While I like the ideas coming out, here's another option if you have room in your garage. Maybe buy a cheaper conical (I have a Blichmann and am not sure I like it) and put the difference into a used fridge/temp controller for your garage. That way you don't have to transfer all the way to the basement and have the option for wider fermentation temps.

jawsbc said:

One of the major benefits of a conical is that it is less work. So to have to do things that add work doesn't make sense to me.

• Hard piping requires a cleaning regimen to ensure it is clean and sanitary.
• Shuttling the beer in kegs or pails means you have to sanitize/clean the kegs before and after.

I personally like simple solutions and would use beer hose to transfer the wort from the kettle to your fermenter in the basement. This will be the easiest with respect to cleaning and sanitizing.

Cheers,

John
Stout Tanks and Kettles
www.conical-fermenter.com

Click to expand...

Not that you're biased in any way.

I use a 15 gallon corny on a $9 Harbor freight dolly for easy transport, couldn't be simpler.

Zamial said:

If this was me, I would pop in a hole and cover it with a spring loaded door or something. Next I would secure a canning sized pressure cooker and X+2 or 3 feet of silicon tubing where X is the needed distance to the conical from the BK. Add in some stainless quick disconnects.

ALL life stops living at temps above 225 F. Silicon tubing is rated for 500 F. The pressure cooker @ 15 psi should be about 240-250 F. The tubing should never need replaced. My thought on long tubing is sanitized is good but sterilized is better.

Click to expand...

Two things I'd be concerned about. First, for a long run of tubing, it's unlikely that the steam will still be above 225 by the time it reaches the end of the run, especially if it is cold or breezy outside (unless you insulate the line, then the complexity of this whole thing starts getting a little ridiculous). Second, feeding steam at 250F and 15psi into a silicone tube. The bargain fittings website specifically states the pressure limit of their 1/2" tubing is 10psi. Unless you're using reinforced silicone tubing (only $8/ft on McMaster!) I would suggest against using silicone tubing attached to a pressure cooker.

(Unless you are just saying to sterilize the tubing in the pressure cooker, which would be fine. I read it as sterilizing the tubing in place.)

JKoravos said:

(Unless you are just saying to sterilize the tubing in the pressure cooker, which would be fine. I read it as sterilizing the tubing in place.)

Click to expand...

lol I guess I should have been a bit more clear, I was thinking about coiling the tube up inside the cooker lol...

Zamial said:

lol I guess I should have been a bit more clear, I was thinking about coiling the tube up inside the cooker lol...

Click to expand...

No worries. I'm sure people have no clue what I'm talking about in most of my posts.

+1
use a 15 gallon corny on a $9 Harbor freight dolly for easy transport, couldn't be simpler.

+2
use a 15 gallon corny on a $9 Harbor freight dolly for easy transport, couldn't be simpler.

or

Install an exhaust fan and build a fume hood, then boil in the house.

I'd make two trips with 5 gallon buckets.

I was just starting to look at indoor combustion brewing. Granted there are some specific issues that need to be addressed, but I don't see them as insurmountable.

What am I missing?

Criteria:
Natural Gas conversion kit. No LP, no tanks. No way.
Hard pipe the gas, with appliance shut off valve.
Floor space with a minimum of 30" clear in all directions to all surfaces.
Provide a UL 2 hour rated wall around the room. (2 layers of type x 5/8 drywall each side)
Provide a UL 2 hr ceiling. (Not sure offhand but roughly 3 layers of type x)
Metal hood over convection area.
CO detector & smoke detector - hardwired and battery backup.
Exhaust fan capable of burner BTU / 100 = CFM. Figure a Blichman Top Tier rated at 60,000 BTU with nat gas kit. So that's 600 CFM x 10% factor of safety = 660 CFM exhaust required. That's like two air changes a min for a 10'x12' brew room. Grainger has one that's roughly 800CFM @ 0 head for $180.00
Supply air - probably supply a little less to get negative pressure in brew room. SWMBO doesn't like hops like I do...

Other than drywalling the ceiling which I HATE... this doesn't look too bad / expensive. What am I missing that pushes indoor people to electric?

Is there any posible way you move your fermentation to the garage? Such as building some sort of insulated box for the conical?

If I wanted to be really gangster about it... I'd run hard piping down to the basement, attach a CFC or plate chiller, and go from hot in the garage to pitchable in the basement. It'd be fairly quick to clean since you could do both the chiller and piping at the same time.

bovineblitz said:

If I wanted to be really gangster about it... I'd run hard piping down to the basement, attach a CFC or plate chiller, and go from hot in the garage to pitchable in the basement. It'd be fairly quick to clean since you could do both the chiller and piping at the same time.

Click to expand...

Oh, great. Now I have another ridiculous DIY project that is so impractical and bada$$ that I have to do it. There goes a peaceful weekend with SWMBO....

"All your home brew are belong to us!"

just install one of those handicap chair lifts on the stairs and strap your kettle in the chair....your not getting any younger

starman said:

I was just starting to look at indoor combustion brewing. Granted there are some specific issues that need to be addressed, but I don't see them as insurmountable.

What am I missing?

Criteria:
Natural Gas conversion kit. No LP, no tanks. No way.
Hard pipe the gas, with appliance shut off valve.
Floor space with a minimum of 30" clear in all directions to all surfaces.
Provide a UL 2 hour rated wall around the room. (2 layers of type x 5/8 drywall each side)
Provide a UL 2 hr ceiling. (Not sure offhand but roughly 3 layers of type x)
Metal hood over convection area.
CO detector & smoke detector - hardwired and battery backup.
Exhaust fan capable of burner BTU / 100 = CFM. Figure a Blichman Top Tier rated at 60,000 BTU with nat gas kit. So that's 600 CFM x 10% factor of safety = 660 CFM exhaust required. That's like two air changes a min for a 10'x12' brew room. Grainger has one that's roughly 800CFM @ 0 head for $180.00
Supply air - probably supply a little less to get negative pressure in brew room. SWMBO doesn't like hops like I do...

Other than drywalling the ceiling which I HATE... this doesn't look too bad / expensive. What am I missing that pushes indoor people to electric?

Click to expand...

A little excessive but safe I suppose. The great thing about home brewing is you can make it complex as you what it to be the only limiting factor is your budget.

My buddy and I have brewed in the garage and the basement.

My buddy's brewery is in his basement. He made a painted plywood hood with a strong exhaust fan. I am not sure about the CFM but the piping is 6" and takes care of the steam and carbon monoxide. I know the hood is wood and is "unsafe" but, there are no open flames near it. If the flames got out of control we have a fire extinguisher near by. The propane tank has a shut off valve on it and so far we have never had a problem. We have looked into doing natural gas but the burners are expensive and some burners require a high pressure supply. This is not normal in residential gas lines would have to get the gas company to change the house regulator, This is also expensive. For added safety we also used a carbon monoxide detector, a cheep one you can pick up at a home improvement store that plugs into an electrical outlet.

I have also brewed in the garage many times. My method of getting 10-12 gals downstairs was in two fermenting plastic buckets, one on each side to balance the weight. I admit it is heavy and the stairs are not fun with an extra 100lbs, and I am only getting older.