wes350x
Member
Seems pretty cool, anyone using one and what's yours opinions. They are also a site sponsor.
https://www.thefastrack.ca/main/fastferment
https://www.thefastrack.ca/main/fastferment
I like the idea as well, but how would you control fermentation temps? You would have to cool the whole room. I can't afford to keep my house in Florida in the low 60's. Forget about lagering.
Put it in a fermentation chamber....???
Waiting on mine.
I wonder if you can jam one of these into a 6.5 gallon bucket and cut a big hole out of the bottom side and bottom for access to the bottom port? Nice cheap stand and can maybe help carry the thing?
I have one of the first versions (before they were bought out and modified). Couple of thoughts;
-Handling a full one is awkward. What I found works best is I actually put the whole thing in a bucket and handle the bucket.
-I had a little difficulty getting the trub/yeast to fall into the ball but that should be rectified with the improvements to the new version.
-Cleaning was a little easier than a carboy but more difficult than a bucket. Again, improvements should make this even easier.
-Harvesting yeast is really nice but you do need to be conscious of when you are using the bulb. Applied too late in the process and you risk oxidizing your beer (air in the bulb needs to go somewhere). This is especially true since that I found in order to get all the yeast out of the cone and into the bulb I needed to empty the bulb multiple times. I think the new bulb is suppose to be bigger. I personally just made sure to purge the bulb with CO2 whenever I was dumping yeast and reapplying it.
-Racking is a breeze with this thing. If mounted on the wall no siphoning at all, just open a valve and let it flow. One issue is that sometimes a little yeast/trub clings to the sides of cone and racking can dislodge it and there is no way to avoid it falling into your keg. Since I cold crash and gelatin all my beers it isn't really an issue. But if you don't do that or are bottling just know you have a little less control over what ends up in your bucket/keg vs careful siphoning.
-Trying to temp control them w/o a chamber is a challenge. In the summer I reserve the FastFermenter for farmhouse style saisons. In the winter it is cold enough in my garage where a heat-lamp pointed at it with a temp controller is enough to maintain the same consistent temps I get in my dual-controlled chamber.
If you want the advantages of a conical without the expense these are a nice option, but they do require a little bit of planning and forethought to use and have some unique challenges. I personally haven't replaced any of my fermenters with these things but I do use them in conjunction with the rest of my equipment. The biggest advantage to me is the ability to dump trub/hop debris that makes it into the fermenter from the kettle and the ease of yeast harvesting.
I like it enough where I have a second one (one of the new versions) on the way. But I won't be retiring my buckets and carboys anytime soon.
*edit: One other thing that I will add is that if you do have one of these guys wall mounted, blow off tube every time, otherwise you end up cleaning Black IPA off the ceiling.
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