In the 6 weeks since I returned to brewing, I've gathered a whole lot of new information. Some of it has been about fermenters.
Now that I have several brews behind me, I've decided plastic buckets are the way to go for most of my beers. Generally, I don't need pressure. Plastic is cheap. Plastic works. Plastic will let me keep using my pool as a chiller. Because a whole fermenter is about $18, I don't mind having several so I can ferment two or more beers at once.
Today, I am fermenting under pressure for the first time, and it looks like a nice option for lagers, mainly because I can avoid tying up my fermenting fridge for long periods. I think it would be good to have one metal pressure fermenter in addition to my buckets. The Fermzilla All Rounder I bought is working fine, but sooner or later it is expected to fail a pressure test, and I think it would be stupid to replace the jug when I could put the money toward stainless steel, which is trouble-free.
If I ended up with stainless, I would lose the big problem with the All Rounder: the need to chill before filling it. Last time I brewed, I had to fill a bucket, chill the bucket, and move everything to the All Rounder. I had to clean the bucket, and the risk of infection was increased because I was playing around with unfermented beer.
Spike makes a pressure fermenter that isn't too expensive, but its external dimensions would require a big fridge. My house only cools to 75, which is higher than I would want to go for lagers. Clawhammer Supply makes a neat 6.5-gallon fermenting Corny, but it's unavailable. Regular Cornys are small, so I would have to change my recipes and settle for smaller batches. I found another option: the 10-gallon Torpedo Megamouth keg. This thing is a fat aftermarket Corny with a big mouth you can stick your whole arm in. I have two smaller ones, and so far, they're fantastic. Very easy to clean.
The Torpedo is 11.4" wide and 30.3" tall, so it fits my fermenting fridge. It has ball lock posts, so pressure fermenting and transferring under pressure are no problem. You can put a floating dip tube in it to avoid sucking trub into the keg you dispense from. It's easy to clean. They also have a 6-gallon model which is shorter and might be just as good for 5-gallon batches if used with Fermcap.
Blichmann makes something called a Cornical keg, which is a modified Corny with a removable conical bottom. It looks great, but it's over 40" tall, and it costs $400, so it's not for me. A 10-gallon Torpedo is about $210, and a 6-gallon Torpedo is about $170.
Wondering what other people think.
Now that I have several brews behind me, I've decided plastic buckets are the way to go for most of my beers. Generally, I don't need pressure. Plastic is cheap. Plastic works. Plastic will let me keep using my pool as a chiller. Because a whole fermenter is about $18, I don't mind having several so I can ferment two or more beers at once.
Today, I am fermenting under pressure for the first time, and it looks like a nice option for lagers, mainly because I can avoid tying up my fermenting fridge for long periods. I think it would be good to have one metal pressure fermenter in addition to my buckets. The Fermzilla All Rounder I bought is working fine, but sooner or later it is expected to fail a pressure test, and I think it would be stupid to replace the jug when I could put the money toward stainless steel, which is trouble-free.
If I ended up with stainless, I would lose the big problem with the All Rounder: the need to chill before filling it. Last time I brewed, I had to fill a bucket, chill the bucket, and move everything to the All Rounder. I had to clean the bucket, and the risk of infection was increased because I was playing around with unfermented beer.
Spike makes a pressure fermenter that isn't too expensive, but its external dimensions would require a big fridge. My house only cools to 75, which is higher than I would want to go for lagers. Clawhammer Supply makes a neat 6.5-gallon fermenting Corny, but it's unavailable. Regular Cornys are small, so I would have to change my recipes and settle for smaller batches. I found another option: the 10-gallon Torpedo Megamouth keg. This thing is a fat aftermarket Corny with a big mouth you can stick your whole arm in. I have two smaller ones, and so far, they're fantastic. Very easy to clean.
The Torpedo is 11.4" wide and 30.3" tall, so it fits my fermenting fridge. It has ball lock posts, so pressure fermenting and transferring under pressure are no problem. You can put a floating dip tube in it to avoid sucking trub into the keg you dispense from. It's easy to clean. They also have a 6-gallon model which is shorter and might be just as good for 5-gallon batches if used with Fermcap.
Blichmann makes something called a Cornical keg, which is a modified Corny with a removable conical bottom. It looks great, but it's over 40" tall, and it costs $400, so it's not for me. A 10-gallon Torpedo is about $210, and a 6-gallon Torpedo is about $170.
Wondering what other people think.
