conical fermenters?

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rycov

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i've been reading on here about not using secondary at homebrewers levels but that some comercial breweries take the beer off the yeast because of the high pressure on the yeast in large conical fermenters. thats awsome for me, less steps = better beer? sweet. can do. i was just wondering abou the larger fermenters they sell at the online home brew stores. if i used one of those 14.5 gal. fermenters could i still just do primary? or would i need to get it off the yeast because of the shape of the bottom and the extra weight of the beer. thanks guys.


:ban: < hes bananas for homebrew.
 
You will see plenty of posts on here regarding this. There is no need to use a secondary if you don't want. The concerns with leaving the beer on the yeast cake for too long aren't valid anymore given the better quality of yeast strains today. Some people still secondary (myself included) but it is not necessary. It is all a matter of preference.
 
I believe you might be concerned about the additional pressure on the yeast from a larger batch and a conical vessel? I had read some chatter about this being the new hypothesis on autolysis in Jamil's podcasts now that he is approving of longer primaries.
 
You will see plenty of posts on here regarding this. There is no need to use a secondary if you don't want. The concerns with leaving the beer on the yeast cake for too long aren't valid anymore given the better quality of yeast strains today. Some people still secondary (myself included) but it is not necessary. It is all a matter of preference.

yeah. i've seen the other posts and it makes sense that i dont need a secondary because...etc. but on the other posts i found it just said dont use it for your car boys or ale pails, but some commercial brewers still did because of the size and shape of there fermenters. i was just wondering at what level does one need to transfer. just on fermenters 100bbl and over? i probably wont ever need to know that. but i do love beer and would like to brew one day around 15 gallons. just wondering if that is too big for a long primary. oh, and the link on the third reply was awsome. i havent seen that before. looks more like space brew than home brew:D
 
On your scale (even 15 gallons), the pressure of the beer on your yeast is minimal compared to the breweries using cylindro-conical fermentors. Think about it, some fermentation tanks are 50'-75' high or more. How high is the level on your beer? 2'-3'? The pressure created on our scale of beer production is minimal at best.

If I were you, and I had money for a Blichmann conical, I'd be spending it on a large temperature controlled thing (room/cabinet/refrigerator) for controlling my fermentation temps. But that's just my $0.02. :mug:
 
yeah. i dont have a larger fermenter yet. i was just wanting to get one but i was thinking that if i needed to do secondary then i would need two and thats just way too much money. but thats good though, that i wouldnt need to do secondary. what about the valves at the bottom of those things. it looks like you would beable to take the sediment out without disturbing the beer or risking infections. (you did answer my question though, thanks! just another thought i was having.) cheers everybody!
 
what about the valves at the bottom of those things. it looks like you would beable to take the sediment out without disturbing the beer or risking infections. (you did answer my question though, thanks! just another thought i was having.) cheers everybody!

I don't have experience with them but my educated guess would be the bottom would be for removing the yeast. The one a few inches up from that would be to keg from, leaving the remaining sediment in the bottom.
 
yeah. thats what i was figuring just from looking at it. and it seems like i may have read that somewhere, that thats what it was for. any one seen the big plastic conicals? i saw a 14.5 gal one on the web somewhere. it looked like the same setup, but i was thinking you might have to replace it after a while. like if it got scratched. anyone know any thing about them?
 
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