Hey BA community, I'd appreciate some input on this. It's a big choice and an expensive upgrade. I'm currently looking at SS, Blichmann, and Spike 7 gal conicals. I like the fact that Blichmann is made in US, I like that the Spike line can ferment up to 15 PSI, and I like the SS line's price. But ultimately, I want to make the best choice and the price isn't that much different. There's also the BrewBuilt X1 Pro that doesn't require glycol, but it's pricey. Does anyone have any input on which would be the best? I'm not getting into temperature control right away, though I probably will in the future. I have an old wine fridge that I can fit a 7 gal conical inside so that'll be my temperature control for the moment. I'd like to be able to do pressure transfers. I need to get my O2 exposure in line, it's the major factor impacting my brew quality.
I know someone who is purely Blichmann. She has three, I think, of their 20 gallon ones and loves them. It is by far the nicest setup I have ever seen and on big brew days, things seem to work well. Otherwise, I can't offer much help.
What about looking at the anvil line. It’s the budget line for Blichman engineering. They just came out with 7.5 and 15 gallon conical fermenters. If budget wasn’t an issue I would go with spike as the 15 psi pressures is great if you want to use it as a unitank.
Thanks, all. I have been shying away from the Anvil line because it can't do pressure transfers. I don't think I'll ever carbonate inside the fermenter so that part is less useful, but being able to do lagers in ale temperatures would be awesome.
SS has basically 3 different options -Brewbucket, Chronical (BME and Regular), and Unitanks Spike has 2 - Flex and CF line If you want a Conical, get one you can dump yeast and trub from. I have a few SS Brewbuckets and they’re fine but the crappy small ball valve/spigot is the downfall IMHO. The Spike Flex makes no sense to me. I would never want to pressurize a vessel to high levels that full of yeast especially at the end of fermentation. You need a dump valve. The SS Chronical is the best bang for your buck IMHO. I bought two non BME and soon basically upgraded everything to make them BME. After you’ve completely disassembled/reassembled those ball valves after every cleaning you’ll understand why. It sucks and you really need to do it. However if you really don’t need a cooling coil maybe go non BME and just buy some cheap butterfly valves on eBay. Definitely get the domed lid though. 1.5” TC, 3” is overkill on 7 gallons and totally unnecessary. Or just go BME and use the cooling coil when you have the equipment. The Spike CF5 and SS Unitank are basically the same price once you add all the accessories to the CF5. Although if you don’t need cooling that’ll save you some money with the CF5. I’ve got or have had all of these options except the flex. From a pure design standpoint the SS gear is way better. Spike just feels cheaper and there’s all sorts of quirky things that could have been done better IMHO. The polished interior of the CF5 is nice and it cleans up a bit easier. I could go on and on about all the little short comings of all of them but I won’t waste The bandwidth. I’ve got over 350 brews under my belt and 95% have been in one of these vessels so I feel like I’ve seen or experienced just about everything. Feel free to PM me if you have any more questions.
