Conical Fermenter: Also as Boil Kettle?

[NoCornOrRice]

Does anyone have experience using a conical fermenter also as a boil kettle with a stainless element? Where did you mount the element?

I have a dilemma regarding my 3v E-HERMS... between not having people over with the pandemic, generally drinking less, and wanting to reclaim some space, I'm looking for creative ways to downsize my brewing operation, from 25g batches to something like 15-20g. Hypothetically, if I direct fire my MLT and then both boil and ferment in my Blichmann Fermenator, I could save an immense amount of space. I'm leaning away from BIAB at the moment, but it is still under consideration.

Any tips are appreciated. Thx.

 

[yoop89]

Its been done, not sure ive seen any builds around here but I have seen breweries that do just that.

https://brewhaequipment.com/products/build-your-own-biac

 

[Monmouth00]

generally drinking less,

You're the first homebrewer I've met who's drinking less during the pandemic!

 

[NoCornOrRice]

By way of update. This is great! I ended up just using a regular non-stainless element. Beer still tastes good, lol. I use my hop spider on its side when boiling, and remove it prior to pitching yeast. Makes brew day much easier.

 

[Tropicpine]

I steep, sparge, boil, ferment & bottle from my conical. As the trub deposits in a mason jar mounting to the bottom of the vessel the beer doesn’t come out between brew day & bottle day.
The process column hidden behind the stand & controller contains a sight glass, pump, heating element & a jacketed heat exchanger fed by a sump pump in the ice chest. At the end of brew day the process column is disconnected and except for the heat exchanger loaded in the dish washer.
The process column & controller are mounted to a ~14"x21" furniture dolly and roll off into a corner. The rest of the equipment I need stows in a 5 gallon bucket that sits inside the conical which gets set on a tip shelf in the pantry.

 

[sicktght311]

It never ceases to amaze me how creative and outside of the box homebrewers get when it comes to building their setups. I feel like its 50% people who mimic a full scale brewery, 30% people who use scaled down equipment, All in One systems, or simple BIAB, and then another 20% who have completely wild setups like above that go through countless hours of tweaking and refinement. Kudos!

 

[Tropicpine]

I am crediting my geriatric insomnia and a very patient wife!