What is the advantage of a conical fermenter with a drain on the bottom? It seems that when you drain the fermenter you will just get all the sediment into your secondary. I use an Ail Pail and siphon the beer out, leaving the sediment behind. Is this done on a conical fermenter too? If so, what's the purpose of the drain on the bottom?
Conical Fermenter Question
- Thread starter ddan7
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llazy_llama
Well-Known Member
Basically, the spigot on the bottom turns your conical from a primary into a secondary. You ferment in a conical exactly as you would in a carboy or a pail, then after fermentation is finished, you open up the spigot and pour out the trub. Now you have secondary conditioning taking place. Same thing as using, say a pail and a carboy, but easier since you don't have to transfer the beer, just pour out the trub.
TwoHeadsBrewing
Well-Known Member
The bottom drain in a conical is to remove the yeast from the container. All the yeast settles down into the bottom of the cone and so is easily removed. There is also another drain higher on the conical for taking samples and racking. This is above the yeast and enables you to pull off only clear beer.
ShortSnoutBrewing
Kwanesum Chinook Illahee
Conicals will have two bulkheads. One on the bottom and one a little further up. The one on the bottom can be used to harvest yeast and clear out all trub essentially negating the need to transfer to a secondary. If your transferring just the beer you're using the higher up bulkhead.
magnj
Well-Known Member
Oh wow, I've been trying to figure that out, pretty fancy. Is there still a separate bottling tank?
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Most people who can afford conicals probably also have the money for a kegging set up. 
I don't see any fundamental reason why you couldn't add a primer and bottle directly from the conical except that for a large conical it might perhaps be a lot of pressure coming out of the bottling wand...
I don't see any fundamental reason why you couldn't add a primer and bottle directly from the conical except that for a large conical it might perhaps be a lot of pressure coming out of the bottling wand...
