DIY plastic conical

There is a posting on the local craigslist for an bunch of food grade drums of various sizes. I thought a 15 gallon one would make a great fermenter for 10 gallon batches. I was wondering if any one knows of any place that makes conical lids for these things. It seems like it would be a useful product for other industrial uses and not just homebrewing. There is also a plastic fabrication shop in town so i also thought about having one custom made if it wasn't too spendy. It seems like it would work well if i took the lid off and cleaned the gasket and everything else after every brew. Has anyone tried this?

Im not sure if we are on the same page but I have a local guy selling 15 gallon containers that are food grade. HDPE I would think. I thought about the possibility of heating the base up with hot water maybe and try to make it conical but I doubt that it would work out that way.

A lid that screws on would probably be more sensible. Stretching plastic makes it thinner anyway. Then theres the stand considerations as well.

Yeah we are on the same page of turning a 15 gal drum into a conical. I don't think i would try that heating the base thing it would probably just ruin your container. I think some sort of conical lid for it would be the way to go or have a platics fabrication shop fix a cone to the bottom of it.

For the money you'd spend on a 15 gallon drum with a conical lid made for it, you could just buy a 15 gallon conical fermentor. Also keep in mind that drum OD sizes may differ, so if you were lucky enough to find some sort of conical lid (I've never heard of one), it might not fit your cheap CL drum.

JohnTheBrewist said:

For the money you'd spend on a 15 gallon drum with a conical lid made for it, you could just buy a 15 gallon conical fermentor. Also keep in mind that drum OD sizes may differ, so if you were lucky enough to find some sort of conical lid (I've never heard of one), it might not fit your cheap CL drum.

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The plastic drums are only $15 and they are nice thick blue plastic. As long as the lid was reasonably cheap i think it would be cheaper than those pre-made fermenters because i'm sure it isn't cheap to ship them. I also think it would be easier to scrub down and clean with a removable cone. I will try and call the plastics shop to see if i could get a ballpark quote to decide it it is even worth trying. If it is i might get a few made and see if the local brew shop wants to try and sell them and also maybe sell them on craigslist.

Try something like this!

http://www.plastic-mart.com/item.aspx?id=135

why does it have to be conical? for $15 you get a 15 gallon container that you can ferment in just fine as is. add a racking port to the side if you want to leave the trub.

I'm sure this has been answered many times before but how bad would fermenting 5 gallons in a 15g be for the beer?

franklinswheat said:

I'm sure this has been answered many times before but how bad would fermenting 5 gallons in a 15g be for the beer?

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It would be terrible. Think about the waste of space. Very, very sad.

That's true, why not just fill it up?

Headspace shouldn't be bad for primary though (to answer you seriously), because you'll be pushing out a lot of CO2 to form a cushion. However, I'd want to pull it out and into a carboy if you dry hop or bulk age.

I top off my bulk aged beers to the very top of the carboy to make sure no O2 gets in.

I was thinking of adding a drain near the bottom of those blue plastic ones too. Im not sure what benefit the cone might have over a drain but I imagine that being able to see through it would help tell when to open the drain. Would opening the drain regularly to check make it more prone to being contaminated by the ball valve opening and closing?

I dont particularly like the conical stand, and it is a big reason aside from prioce why I dont have a conical and probably wont be able to afford one on ym budget.

DrummerGuySteve, what do you use to top off your carboys with?

DIYSeattle said:

I was thinking of adding a drain near the bottom of those blue plastic ones too. Im not sure what benefit the cone might have over a drain but I imagine that being able to see through it would help tell when to open the drain. Would opening the drain regularly to check make it more prone to being contaminated by the ball valve opening and closing?

I dont particularly like the conical stand, and it is a big reason aside from prioce why I dont have a conical and probably wont be able to afford one on ym budget.

DrummerGuySteve, what do you use to top off your carboys with?

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The benefit of the conical is that it is easy to harvest yeast for use in other brews and that there is no need to transfer to a secondary because you can just let gravity push all the yeast out of the bottom of the cone. You can do this several times before bottling so hardly any sediment winds up in your final beer unlike siphoning from a carboy where you are sure to pick up some sediment. Most breweries use conicals. Stands are easy to make yourself with free scrap wood.