Conical Logistics

Can someone clue me in to your technique for utilizing a conical?

I am in the market to add 1 or 2 conicals to handle my 10+ gallon batches. Something in the 11-15 gallon range.

So i brew on a single tier outside or just inside the garage on windier days. I ferment inside of course, in a room no less than 30ft away and up two steps.

So how does one get 10+ gallons of wort in your conical, presumably outside at this point after transferring from your brew kettle, into the house or fermenting location? The conical full of wort is over 100 lbs, not to mention difficult to move that large amount of liquid without sloshing or spilling.

Is this done by transferring multiple times in smaller batches ? Thanks for the insight.

I have none of this equipment, but I'd guess that the use of a pump is mandatory.

I use a self-priming pump (situated in my basement) to pull the hot wort from my kettle, down through a whole-house pleated 30 micrometer filter, through my plate chiller, and into my pre-chilled (32 degrees or less) conical in the freezer. The pump goes into the racking port on the conical - not the dump valve.

I have enough elevation that once I start the flow I can usually let gravity handle the rest. At least until the filter starts to get clogged. Only then do I turn the pump on very slowly.

In addition, I leave the pump running for about 10 minutes when the wort is done being pulled (the pump is pulling air) and this creates lots of agitation in the wort to aerate it. I find this is all I need.

I let the break settle till the next morning, dump it, and then set the freezer to the lowest temperature recommended by the yeast package/type. When the wort reaches that temp I pitch.

To clean everything up:

- ditch the filter in the trash
- rinse out the filter housing unit and reattach it
- reverse the connections on the plate chiller
- detach the outlet line from the conical to my sink
- attach water to the systems inlet
- pump fresh water through
- recirculate a mixture of BLC and water through the pumping system
- rinse BLC mixture using unrecirculated fresh water
- recirculate starsan and sani-clean

OK, i have pumps, but the big question maybe I didnt make clear is that the distance from where I brew, i.e. Brew Kettle, to where the conical will live is 30-50 FEET or likely more distance when you start talking about running tubing. It may take 100ft of tubing to do what the above posts suggest.

Im not sure the pumps I use, March 809s, have that kind of pressure capability and likely most pumps used for homebrew dont either.

Do people with conicals really brew in very close proximity to where their fermentors live?

I have a conical and it is the Blichmann 27 gallon model. I consider it the best one made for several reasons.

• No welds at all
  
• Well designed fittings with very smooth finishes on everything. They have grooves for the orings so they seal properly.
  
• They are pressurizable so you can transfer at the same level using CO2 to move the beer.

You do need a big refrigerator or a home brew fermentation chamber for the 27 gallon model but the 15 gallon fits OK in most refrigerators or freezers. I fabricated a 4 foot by 6 foot platform with wheels and have an insulated cover that easily tilts to access the entire platform so no large door is needed. I use a room air conditioner and a Ranco controller and it hardly runs due to 4 inches of insulation. I use a March 809 pump to transfer wort but you could pour it in using a funnel and buckets if you had to.

you could use a pump or you could pour it into a smaller sanitized pot and transfer a smaller amount at a time. good aeration with all that splashing, too.

the other day my friend and i lifted 20+ gallons of rye wort and poured it into a 22 gallon conical. i even have a bad back, but it wasn't that much trouble at all.

so, yeah, get a friend to help

Use Brew Buckets to transfer the wort in 2 or 3 runs.
Or you could use the pump and hose. It may run slow but you pump should be able to lift the wort the few feet to the fermenter.
I'm guessing many conical users have a brewery setup or transfer using buckets.
I am very jealous of all of them.

Craig

The answer is that I brew outside and pass my lines through a basement window where my freezer is located. I have about 25 feet of tubing between the kettle and the pump and another 10 from the pump to the fermenter. This also happens to be the distance between my pump and my basement bathroom. I detached the shower head and attached a quick-disconnect so I can easily rinse everything with clean water.