DIY Conical Fermenter and Brewing System on the cheap

I’ve been brewing beer at home for quite some time – since before I could legally drink what I was producing.  Much of that has been from kits or from malt extract and my homegrown hops in large part because of the ease with which that can be accomplished.  When I’ve gone over to the all grain side it’s been with cobbled together motley collection of coolers, strainers, bags and the like – which all things considered has gone pretty well.

Recently I’ve wanted to increase my all grain brewing in part because it offers more control but truth be told because it also promises to be significantly cheaper since malt extract and kits are now getting to the price point they produce beer for half the price of purchased product.

In my review of the systems that are out there I’ve been drawn to the one vessel systems – either the brew-in-a-bag systems, or the brew in a single vessel like the braumeister out of Germany or the more recently introduced grainfather – which really resembles a large commercial coffee urn.  But the one that really caught my fancy was the system that has you brewing in a single vessel that vessel being a conical – now that is efficiency!

I’ve wanted a conical for some time now, and since I’ve started to get a hang of welding stainless steel with my Henrob oxy-acetylene torch when I built the stainless steel pizza oven I wanted to give it a try – but since my welding isn’t exactly commercial grade the idea of doing a 90 minute boil in the conical – which would sterilize the nooks and crannies left in my imperfect welds that might be otherwise hard to get clean – efficient and able to accommodate my stainless welding limitations.

Because I didn’t want to invest too much money into the project I decided to start with a few cheap stainless steel pots – a four pot set from harbor freight, the largest one a 4 gallon unit, and an additional 5 gallon pot.  Both the set and the larger pot were nineteen bucks each.  Tri-clamp fittings from e-bay, direct from China added another $40 or so, toss on a pound of stainless tig rods and we’re looking at about a hundred bucks.

Now, I’m frugal, but one of the other factors here is that this is a prototype, and as such it won’t be perfect, so it doesn’t make sense to dump a lot of cash into something that inherently will be less than the optimal design.

The other thing is that this won’t handle a full five gallon batch – but it should be sized right for three gallon batches, which if this system is as easy to use as I would like to make it is about the perfect size for turning out loads of different beer variations.

Oh, and I’ve got a twist up my sleeve that I’m going to explore, but I’ll save that for later.  Stay tuned to see how it works out.