Conical fermenter as a Eletrical Boil kettle?

Sorry if this was already discussed in another thread, but my question is:

Instead of having a Boil Kettle, can i adapt my Stainless Steel Conical Fermenter, to work as a Boil Kettle?

I imagine that, as it is conincal, and has a valve on its botton, i can take all sediments thru this valve after finishing boil stage.

Using the fermentor as a boil kettle i wouldnt need to use pump or any other method to send the liquid to the fermenter, so, less contaminations risk.

Please, advise.

Regards, Eduardo.

 

Sounds like it could work.
What is your plan for chilling?

Positioning the electrical immersion element might be tricky.

Maybe a spa type element might work on the curve better.


Depending on where on the conical you are thinking of mounting the element.

 

Thanks for answering so quickly.

For Chilling i am planning to install inside of the fermenter a stainless steel tube of 3/8" (24 meter) or just use an imersion chiller of cooper.

That´s the eletrical element i am planing to use.

Regards, Eduardo.

 

For the price of a pot vs the price of a conical, I would keep it as a fermenter and buy a boil kettle.

If you wanted, however, you could always use it as a one pot brewery. Use BIAB to brew your beer, dump the break material and hops after whirlpool, add yeast, dump yeast, fining agent additions, rack into keg. You would only ever have one beer going at a time, but that could be fine; you could still brew every 2-3 weeks if you were doing ales.

 

Do not use copper for your chiller if you will ferment with it in the conical. The acid level of the fermenting beer will leach copper into the beer.

Use stainless steel tubing.

 

Good tip, thanks.

I will keep this in mind.

Regards, Eduardol

 

That is true... anyway, if i have just one fermenter, it doens matter if i have an isolated boil kettle, i will only have one beer going at a time.

So, it is in my plan to have at least 2 fermentors, both working as a boil kettle.

Regards, Eduardo.

 

I'd use heat sticks and a standard immersion chiller, this way there is less "crap" in contact with the fermenting beer.

 

That is true!!! And that is the reason to use the fermenter as a boil kattle. Less "crap" in contact with the beer!

Regards, Eduardo.

 

Build a 5500 watt heatstick, an immersion chiller to fit and I think you're as good as gold my friend! Then you can also cut down on equipment costs, using the heatstick/chiller on another conical.

 

This is what i am planning to use


5000watt, 220v heat stick.

Price here in Brazil - U$ 27

 

Excellent idea.
I've also thought about doing something similar, currently having difficulties finding concial fermenter (for reasonable price) here in Israel.

for heating I want to use a heatstick with temperature probe attached to it.
I found few specialist that can built me something like that, would cost around 200$ for a stainless heating element (any shape I want) + temp controller and probe.

using BIAB it will be a true single vessel brewery.

looking for updates.

Royi


update:

the heatstick will look roughly like this one (plus temp controller at the top ).
only the bottom part is heating.

 

If you don't mind ordering from Germany, you can buy a 230v 2000w heatstick

 

The gaskets and washers on the conical may not be rated for such high temps, that could be a big problem.

 

Good point, I'm sure they could be replaced with silicone o-rings (oringsandmore.com) or you could cut gaskets from a silicone baking sheet. Just to offer up an quick fix.

 

Exactly. This is what we have in mind.

Regards, Eduardo.

 

It's a really good idea and there's no reason why it won't work. I'd consider temp controlling the conical from the outside using a copper coil and recirculating glycol. Conicals are awesome, but if you can't keep the temp down you're gonna have crappy beer...and you probably won't be able to keep it in a fridge if you plan to boil with it, etc. so you need to control the temp somehow.

 

Yes... that is the point.... we are planning to use a sistem that keeps a tank outside with cold glycol and a pump conected to a temp controller, which will pump this cold liquid thru the chiller inside of the fermenter if temp gets higher than we set.

Regards, Eduardo.

 

Eduardo, did you ever build your conical kettle? I came across this thread when I was thinking about building something similar, a combo kettle/whirlpool settling tank, where you could dump the trub and hot break just like you'd dump yeast.

All of the kettles I've ever seen have had flat bottoms, but I don't see any particular reason for that, if you're going electric.