I've had this fermenter for 2 years. Used to dump, now I don't bother. I love the pour valve, wish it didn't have thre trub dump. This fermenter is super easy to clean except for that complicated valve. This fermented in my opinion could be the best, with a few simple changes.
Merry Christmas! I have 2 of these conicals. I ABSOLUTELY love them. Next purchase will be the glycol chiller. They're perfect for my home brewery and I'm in an apartment so storage is limited.
Awesome.. . They do have a narrow footprint that's for sure.. . I can't wait to use the chiller on some other vessels I have here and see how it does! 👍🍻 Merry Christmas to you too!!
Merry Christmas Brian! Thanks for the video. Might have to look into this product. Sounds pretty awesome. Look forward to the videos with the non grain father fermenter. Sla'inte!
Why it is necessary to change glycol every 1/2 year. However, I haven't changed mine yet and it is just over 1 year old. It's fine and the glycol doesn't smell either. Maybe it has something to do with the life span of the glycol for it to be used as food grade material, but I don't see any chance for the glycol to get out in the beer... The "old" fermenter unit have real push buttons, not touch, maybe they cut cost, a bit too much ? Your spot on, not much space for the hand at the valve, is also difficult to clean, where the beer should come out, due to lack of space. PS: Nice Video 👍
I have the glycol chiller and one conical. Form factor is the biggest plus. The glycol chiller isn't as high powered as some at it's same price point. I do a lot of lagering so I am concerned if I ever get 2 or more conicals that it won't work. I am holding off on buying another because of that, but also Brewtools is rumored to be coming out with a jacketed, pressure capable fermenter and a glycol chiller. Should see more of it next year.
FYI, glycol you linked is not inhibited glycol. Pure glycol as you linked is quite corrosive and will lead to metal deposits in the solution. You should use inhibited glycol (such as Dowfrost). Speaking from experience.
Dumping the dead yeast needs to be done every couple of days. Your review doesn’t respect that and it’s a major feature that you missed. It’s one of the reasons I love my Grainfather conical fermenter, in that I can produce amazing clarity in my beer. I really feel that UTube reviews should not be done without real experience
Hello Brian! I'm seriously thinking about buying this set. Is it powerful enough for making lagers in more fermenters in parallel? My ambient room temperature is about 22C and I need about 10C for lagers. Can I even cold crash all fermenters at the same time to about 4C? I assume I will run 2 fermenters most of the time and because there currently is GC2 with 2 outputs, I'm thinking about is, too. But maybe the bigger one GC4 would be better, even when not all ports are connected, as I assume it should have higher cooling power and cold crashing should be possible.
Merry Christmas. Would you recommend the chiller to anyone who has a thought of increasing their brew size from 5 to 10 gallon batches? My concern would be that if you had something with a long fermentation time like a lager or quad and wanted to do more brewing or bigger batches the chiller capacity could become a bottleneck. It does seem perfect if you are locked in at 5 gallons but that’s a lot of money to have to think about changing out later.
That is a good question! Any time you increase the batch size, your expectations have to adjust with it. I think you could run one 10 gallon lager and 2 - 5 gallon ales without much problem. Might even be able to get away with 3 - 10 gallon ale batches if your ambient temp is not too high. 👍🍻
SCB, sorry to bother you. I have a Grainfather glycol wort chiller and the Grainfather conical fermenter and they work AWESOME. However, we in south Texas only get about a month of winter if we get lucky. The rest of the year is scorching hot. My electric bill is sky high cause the glycol wort chiller is constantly on to maintain the cool temps of the wort. Any advice on what small batch fermenter I can by that I can just stick in a fridge with a thermowell/airlock/dry hop? Thank you so much in advance.
I,ve been using the fermenter for about a year. It does the job and its very easy to clean. The only thing i dont like about it, are the cable connections. One of the lil pins in one broke and i had to strip the cables an pushed it into the conical. I taped it on there. Cant find a new cable
OK, I did not find a cable itself. BUT ... Here is something i found ( I purchased one for adding non-grainfather fermenters to the system.) A little pricey but I could not find anything cheaper except for purchasing on Ali Express.. (Which I did for a fraction of the cost.. ) Plus it is metal and might be more sturdy than the original one. amzn.to/2QjoyUZ
I like the the Grainfather conical, I’ve had it for close to two years, my only issue is the connection with the mother board to the fermenter. It seems very temperamental to connect, you can hear it like it’s making a connection but no display on the board, I have to move the control box around to get the display screen to light up. I did purchase the cooling kit with the hoses, so it came with a different control box versus the standard one. Have you had any issues with years or recommendations on what might be going on?
I too have had some issues from time to time. I would take a pencil erasure and scrub the contacts then wipe with rubbing alcohol to clean them. (On the fermenter) that might help.
You need to get more time under your belt with it? Your a bloody Scotsman! I suspect you need more time under your skirt with it. Cheers buddy, great vidya. It's been a while so I had to really swat the hornets nest. I'll try to be less busy so I can watch more now that you're making more. Good to have you back up and quenching again.
Haha! About time you spoke up!! Thought you went senile!! Lol And it's a kilt not a skirt!! Good to be making videos again.. Working on being consistent in 2020. We'll see how that goes! Cheers man!! 👍🍻
@@ShortCircuitedBrewers My vicarious education has been on spring break while you decided to experiment with brewery contracting. LOL Needless to say, no one took any compromising videos of this old man with questionable judgement. I guess they feel sorry for me. Cheers Brain.
Question for you: can you cool your wort directly in the fermenter using the glycol chiller or do you still have to use the counterflow chiller? It would be great to eliminate one step of cleaning, etc. Thanks!
@@ShortCircuitedBrewers it's tempting me I'm currently using a DIY aquarium chill that works pretty good. Would be nice to have something more compact and shiny lol
