After getting some great ideas from other members I finally decided to give it a go with my own plastic conical fermenter. I do 20 gal. Batches as of now, and the 4- five gallon buckets were a pain. This project will be a slow process, building it as time and money allow. I will update as I go and hopefully someone can give me some input, and others can learn from my mistakes.
I built the stand out of scrap I have in my treasure pile outback. I bent the rings out of # 3 rebar.
I will eventually cut diamond plate or something cool to mount to the little four wheel flat cart and the fermenter will attach to that making it easy to wheel from the shop after brewing, to the little room behind it that has a kick ass AC. I will prob mount my pump , chiller, filters and what not to the cart as well.
The lid to my top port of the conical is kinda small, making it hard to work in. I noticed that some of the plastic lip was only there to attach a lanyard that was on the lid. I easily cut it's away with a roto zip giving me just enough room to get an arm all the way in and still see what I'm doing.
I finally got some pieces to build my rotating racking arm I decided to go with 3/4" stainless tubing to give me a good flow, this way the 1/2" valve port will not be restricted by the inside diameter of my tubing. I probably could have used 5/8", but this is all experimental at this point.
The hole I drilled at 13/16" with a step bit was just perfect so the nipple threaded in.
I got it all fitted up and rotating. I would have liked a little more bend on the tubing, but this piece was free, so, I use what I got.
Next step will be the bottom bulkhead for the dump valve, then I can leak test before moving on. I will post more when I get there. Any ideas, input, whatever is appreciated because I have no idea what I'm doing.
I built the stand out of scrap I have in my treasure pile outback. I bent the rings out of # 3 rebar.
I will eventually cut diamond plate or something cool to mount to the little four wheel flat cart and the fermenter will attach to that making it easy to wheel from the shop after brewing, to the little room behind it that has a kick ass AC. I will prob mount my pump , chiller, filters and what not to the cart as well.
The lid to my top port of the conical is kinda small, making it hard to work in. I noticed that some of the plastic lip was only there to attach a lanyard that was on the lid. I easily cut it's away with a roto zip giving me just enough room to get an arm all the way in and still see what I'm doing.
I finally got some pieces to build my rotating racking arm I decided to go with 3/4" stainless tubing to give me a good flow, this way the 1/2" valve port will not be restricted by the inside diameter of my tubing. I probably could have used 5/8", but this is all experimental at this point.
The hole I drilled at 13/16" with a step bit was just perfect so the nipple threaded in.
I got it all fitted up and rotating. I would have liked a little more bend on the tubing, but this piece was free, so, I use what I got.
Next step will be the bottom bulkhead for the dump valve, then I can leak test before moving on. I will post more when I get there. Any ideas, input, whatever is appreciated because I have no idea what I'm doing.
j/k.
