Conical Fermentors vs Buckets

[smoke76]

I was looking on some sites and checking out Conical Fermentors. What is the advantage of this vs the standard bucket. Also I noticed that there is a ball valve on the bottom of the cone. I would assume this is for the trub. Is that the advantage, to remove the trub for yeast harvesting?

George

 

[ebeer]

The main advantages are the ability to dump trub, harvesting of yeast, and stainless steel.

Plastic buckets over time *can* develop small scratches that *can* harbor nasties. Reasonable care, periodic replacement, and proper sanitizing should make these largely non issues.

I think a conical is the ultimate in beer geekery (I have one, and I love it). Does it make my beer better? Surely not. What it does is make it very easy to ferment in one vessel (even lagers) because of the ability to trub dump. It's also a breeze to harvest and reuse yeast (saving $5.00 per brew). It's stainless and should outlast me on this planet, as well as being easy to clean.

Does this warrant $500 for an entry level conical? I dunno, I'm happy with mine. But $500 would buy a lot of yeast and plastic buckets