Brewery Plant 1000liter Fermenting Vessels with Insulation Colling Jacket

Conical Fermenters

If you’re a serious brewer who wants a truly professional at-home beer brewing setup, there’s nothing more professional than a conical fermenter. These conical fermenters are built to replicate the very same ones used in commercial beer breweries, and they promise to take your microbrew to the next level!

10hl conial fermenting vessels in cellar

What is a Conical Fermenter?

Conical fermenters are cone-shaped fermentation vessels with a valve on the bottom of the cone. As yeast and other solids fall out of suspension during fermentation, they settle in the bottom of the cone. This trub can then be removed from the beer introducing a risk of infection or oxidation.

3 tanks fermenters

Advantages of Conical Fermenters

Conical fermenters have several advantages over carboys and bucket-style fermenters. Here are a few of the main reasons that they are better than flat-bottomed fermenters:

• No-Transfer Secondary Fermentation

First, there is no need to transfer to a secondary fermenter with a conical fermenter. You can simply open the bottom valve to remove the sediment that falls out of suspension during primary fermentation. You do not need to risk oxidizing the beer moving it to a second fermenter. This also improves your beer’s clarity, and avoids getting sediment into your kegs or bottles.

• Easy Yeast Harvesting

Second, the bottom valves on conical fermenters provide you with the ability to harvest viable yeast during fermentation that you can reuse in future batches. Some of the fermenters below use butterfly valves with attachable yeast containers and others have valves to dump the yeast. Harvesting yeast from a carboy is very difficult, and harvesting from a bucket can cause infection issues. Upgrading to a conical fermenter makes yeast harvesting much easier.

• Easier Transfers

Conical fermenters have bottom valves and racking arms, making it easier to transfer the beer from the fermenter to a keg or bottles. Personally, I am very happy to not have to mess with siphoning beer anymore! The racking arms are generally able to rotate off of the yeast cake. This rotation results in clear beer and less sediment being transferred.

• Easier to Clean

Finally, conical fermenters are easier to clean. Most conical fermenters are made from stainless steel or high-quality plastic. This makes them easier to clean than the soft plastic that brew buckets are made from. Conical fermenters have large openings on the top and a bottom valve, making it easy to clean them. You don’t even have to pick them up and dump them out!