I've started experimenting with a conical fermentor that has a true 60-degree cone that is steep enough to truly collect gunk and slide it down to the bottom. And it has a dump valve.
I don't harvest yeast, so I would only be using this dump valve to remove trub/yeast/hops precipitate. Not having the ability to do this before, it's opened up some questions in my mind and I was interested in other's experience and research:
1. How long can I sit with this "gunk" at the bottom of the beer before I should pull it off? Maybe this is a cool tool that isn't really needed.
2. Assuming I do want to dump trub, when would it be done? It seems like there are competing/conflicting times here: a) Do it later because you won't have precipitate until later in fermentation, b) Do it while the yeast is still active because the volume of stuff coming out of the bottom of the fermentor will be replaced by a volume of air in the headspace at top of fermentor.
I don't harvest yeast, so I would only be using this dump valve to remove trub/yeast/hops precipitate. Not having the ability to do this before, it's opened up some questions in my mind and I was interested in other's experience and research:
1. How long can I sit with this "gunk" at the bottom of the beer before I should pull it off? Maybe this is a cool tool that isn't really needed.
2. Assuming I do want to dump trub, when would it be done? It seems like there are competing/conflicting times here: a) Do it later because you won't have precipitate until later in fermentation, b) Do it while the yeast is still active because the volume of stuff coming out of the bottom of the fermentor will be replaced by a volume of air in the headspace at top of fermentor.