WHICH HOMEBREW FERMENTER SHOULD I BUY?

what's going on guys siege from homebrew for life and today we are going to go over home roof fermenters i'm going to tell you the do's and the don'ts based off my personal experiences to help you navigate on your buying decisions so you don't have to live in shame and end up like me i've made a lot of decisions i burned a lot of money there's anybody that knows anything about buyer's remorse it's this broad right here enough for the mumbo jumbo let's take our shirts off let's wrestle the first naked cop that we see [Music] fermenters there's a lot on the market plastic glass stainless steel we're talking about fermenters today people price conical cleaning racking conical means like the cone breaking mobility gimmicks and i promise you this make it to the end of this video and you will know as much about homebrew fermenters as i do straight out of the gate guys what not to do do not buy glass do not buy glass fermenters it's the worst fermenter to buy by so far i could write a book on why i hate glass fermenters but here's some of the bullet points i mean for starters they're dangerous it's extremely dangerous we've all broken these donnie was telling me the other day that he sliced through his hand you usually break them when they're full i mean when they're full they're what 40 50 60 pounds so you just gave up your saturday to brew they've got no give it's glass it breaks you're ruined now you've got to get stitched up your place is a mess and you just wasted a day whatever your garage your kitchen your brew house it's trashed it's disgusting now avoid glass by any means reason number two i hate glass they're kind of pricey i mean they're for five or six gallon glass corny cake they're like 50 bucks and stick around because in a little bit i'm gonna teach you how to make my favorite fermenters for like six or seven dollars it's the exact opposite of what i'm talking about right now glass doesn't have handles you have to buy the straps what's the strap like another 12 bucks so straight out of the gate we're already at what 60 65 well now you got to clean it you can't take the lid off so you have to have another brush what's the brush 10 bucks on amazon so we're already at 75 bucks right straight off the gate for the worst fermenter the most fragile thing we've all got them we all started home brewing with them they're sitting around our garages we don't know what to do with them you can't sell them nobody wants it when you're supposed to throw it away it's a nice piece of glass put some flowers in it there's no spigot there's no spigots you have to rack so we need another siphoning king what was that another 20 bucks we're already at a hundred dollars for something that's the most inefficient and is without question most fragile and dangerous they're not conical at all they're not even close to being anything close to conical here's a good rule of thumb for any brew house or workstation or blue collar garage or factory try to avoid glass as much as humanly possible if you ever have the option to buy plastic good plastic food grade plastic over glass do it every single time [Music] plastic through and through so easy to clean yeah the lid comes off yes plastic does scrape but just don't use steel wool just don't use any metal and you won't scrape it so yeast can harbor you don't even need to use steel wool if you have hot water pbw or oxiclean look at that you can get every nook and cranny without even thinking about it it doesn't give you a headache it's got a handle right here look at that you don't have to buy any strap you kidding me who's kidding who the most affordable fermenters you will ever imagine look at the spigots right there look at the spigots right there brush look at that if you google plastic fermenter call it like six gallon plastic fermenter with lid and spigot they're probably gonna range from anywhere from 25 to like 60 bucks but here's how i make them for seven dollars [Music] all right home depot fam the adult toys are us everybody knows about these orange home depot buckets which i have no problem brewing with but if you need that peace of mind you head on down to aisle 14 snag the white food grade buckets for almost the same price food grade bucket let's pair it with a food grade spigot the bundle pack i don't think home depot sells these but even if they did they'd still probably be cheaper on amazon which is where i buy mine four dollar bucket three dollars bigot alright homebrew for life the inception of youtube a tutorial within a tutorial here's how to drill into plastic without cracking it so you don't get any leaks gotta get your drill bits dialed in fam spade bits you will have these forever unless you're a full-time construction worker get on that dewalt train fam or else i just feel sorry for you step drill bit do not spend more than ten dollars on these brand name will be like 50 plus the amazon the harbor freight one shred shout out to you if you were subscribed to our channel when we made the kegel video we used the same drill bit that was almost a year ago time flies when you're being a barrage all right so two holes that's what she said yeah one for the bong and the other for the spigot start out with your spade bits something small we just need to drill a hole it's going to chip the out of the plastic it's all good unless you drill too big of a hole once you have the small hole switch to the step drill bit apply pressure lightly so you don't make the hole bigger than your bum this drills a smooth even hole into your plastic make sure the lid is on and press it from both sides if there's action in your air lock then your air lock is airtight that's the best part about these buckets they do not need gaskets i have a 60 liter spider it's huge and it's good for larger batches but it's tougher to keep air tight and you do need a gasket which i've already had to replace it's got this weird black belt thing it's been okay over the years it's just really expensive if i knew now when i knew then three or four years ago when i bought this for 10 plus gallon batches i wouldn't have bought this i would have just put them in two plastic fermenters the ones that we're making right now and just throwing yeast into each of the buckets all right now for the spigot this is optional but i do it every time cut this part down a little bit so the spigot isn't so high up in the bucket [Music] and so just fits even with the bottom of the bucket repeat the process spade bit create the hole step drill bit to get that smooth wide spigot hole no leaks plastic has way more give than metal in my experience metal leaks way more it just doesn't have the give like plastic does couple pointers use three-piece airlocks not the s-ones if you plan on using your bucket handle which you're going to be using every time the three-piece airlocks are smaller so you could move the bucket around without hitting your airlock i never really throw the buckets away there's kind of like this life cycle with these buckets in my garage brew house they always start as fermentors and then switch to grain buckets and then somehow i lose them give them away or they turn into coolers and then sometimes after that when they kind of get weathered they'll just become mop buckets and then eventually they just turn into trash and recycling and that's all i had to say about that [Music] all right stainless steel fermenters stainless steel conical and plastic from you know what i'm already weeding out the plastic fermenters we're done with plastic the eye candy and to be perfectly honest with you i don't really know i only have one and i recently got it i've always just used plastic stainless steel fermenters were always way too expensive for me and they weren't mandatory so i felt the need not to have one i've never had one over these last five six years it's crazy but they are gorgeous and they have them at pretty much every price point these days i've been around a ton of homebrewers that do have them and noticed a very like love or hate relationship ultimately coming down to if you overpaid and you have buyer's remorse but here's mine i love mine the anvil 7.5 gallon stainless steel bucket fermenter incredibly easy to assemble the spigot takes like 10 seconds to connect and set up emboss level markings you always know your quantities it's huge that's a huge thing rotating racking arm it's got handles so you can just pick it up there's fermenters out there with like legs and wheels at the bottom and they don't do anything except jack up the price we can all lift five gallons up but the biggest factor by far is the price tag 130 dollars stainless steel is stainless steel it's not like some huffy metal piece of versus some like lance armstrong poly titanium metal it's not stainless steel it is conical kind of conical conical is very subjective in the homebrewing world obviously every fermenter in the commercial world is conical but it's kind of your call in the homebrewing world as far as beer clarity goes and less sediment i cut an inch off my corny cake's dip tube so i'm already good in that department are you reusing yeast all the time i'm not i'll keep some cali001 in the fridge but usually we're only brewing once or twice a month and it's a completely different yeast london fog commercial breweries are used are reusing yeast all day generation after generation you would have to every brewery would be out of business if they had to buy the small little yeast packet things that we buy conical fermenters do they reduce do they reduce oxidation or infection i don't think so at all and i think that comes down to the brewer does it make better home brew to conical do stainless steel conical ferment distinct does it make better home brew do stainless steel conical fermenters make better homebrew again i think it comes down to the brewer like if you took a batch same recipe and put it in a plastic fermenter and then a 500 stainless steel conical fermenter and it both had temperature control would you taste better beer [Music] i don't know i would guess no as long as the plastic fermenter brewer knew what he was doing do they look sexy oh yeah oh yes do some of them just have amazing engineering and it completes your garage oh yeah absolutely can a camry get you to work yeah but it's not a lexus a huge factor do they have resale value light years more than plastic yes to answer your question absolutely i would never buy used plastic or sell used plastic it wouldn't be worth anything stainless steel fermenter you could probably drop it and nothing would happen maybe a dent you'd probably get away with anything though plastic probably would break probably would break glass we're done talking about glass we're done talking about glass will it last forever yeah yeah it's stainless steel it's gonna last forever and any product that lasts forever well that's a good product so here's the debate which one to buy and i think it's just completely subjective well then again all of this is completely subjective just some man some of these are expensive i already have a diy temp control system so i don't have to worry about that obviously that's a factor maybe it's not a factor maybe you don't even need temp control maybe you have a basement or a wine cellar you can just put your stuff down there well that will save you hundreds few hundred dollars again it's just subjective i know somebody who's bought a 700 grain father fermenter and they hated it they said it wasn't worth the price at all they said for 700 bucks it should come with a glycol chiller but then i've talked to people that bought ss brewtech uh chronicles and they absolutely loved them love them to death so to anybody who's got conical stainless steel fermenters i love my anvil i brewed with it two or three times zero problems at all it's gonna last me a lifetime 130 dollars 130 dollars what we talked about earlier our glass being 100 the plastic one that i bought for 100 stainless steel that's going to last me a lifetime even though i might have to maybe replace the gasket every couple years don't have a problem with that 130 bucks best buy on the market does it look as pretty as some of these other robocop looking ones no do i care not at all so anybody with conical fermenters let us know in the comments section uh if you're stoked off your purchase or if you weren't stoked or maybe just some pros and cons and don't treat it like a bashing session like we don't have to just go for blood for every brand it's no different than a forum you know when you're looking at an online homebrew forum you're just looking if you're in the market you're gonna check out the pros and the cons learn from other people's mistakes that's it thanks for watching my video you could have been anywhere in the world but you were here looking at my shitty face and i love you for it that's it have a good one guys cheers and good i'm drinking good water this is the third shirt i've had to wear today i'm sweating i'm sweating that's another thing it's freezing in the front of my house it's hot as hell in the back of my house stash your beer in the front of the house you might not need temperature control [Music] you

Channel: HOMEBREW 4 LIFE

Views: 150,889

Keywords: homebrew fermenter, homebrew 4 life, anvil foundry, ss brewtech, grainfather, fermentaton, conical, conical fermenter, plastic, glass, speidel, bucket, choosing, homemade, home made, diy, home, made

Id: TC6toMVi9YU

Length: 12min 55sec (775 seconds)

Published: Wed Aug 05 2020