Hey fellow brewers! Just Wondering if any of you have seen the new plastic fermentor the guys from Fastrack are putting out, and what your thoughts are. It looks very interesting, and at 90$ I'm tempted to pre order one! The one major flaw I can see at this time would be moving the thing around to get it into position to bottle, and the stand they are proposing you use looks like it might take up some space.
It's going up in price after the end of the month, so I gotta pull the trigger soon.
Thoughts?
I've been curious as well. You would need to purchase the stand with it and posibly put it on wheels for ease, something I think really sucks as I don't want to wall mount my fermentor. It has peeked my interest as well, but I passed based on total cost overall and the fact it's only 7 gal.
Lucas built his own and it has the yeast collector at the bottom. You can see it in the ferm room immediately to the left! Of course, Lucas goes crazy with creating these things but he posted how to create one on the forum somewhere. Might be worth looking at if you are handy and don't necessarily need a yeast collector at the bottom, or want to do larger batches. I would assume the overall price would be close to the same but then again, I could be completely wrong.
They were demoing the FastRack Fermentor at the National Homebrewers Convention. The conclusion all of us made was it does not make sense for our space, since it requires a wall-mount currently.
This is perfect of a basement or garage where your system can be set-up around the fermentor, but it would be a challenge even with the stand with our model.
The entire "Why use FastFerment?" section is rather cringey to me. Not the most persuasive -
1.) Guaranteed Consistent Batches: Are they really trying to argue that fermentation vessel plays that large of a role in the product? We should all know by now that yeast health, pitch rate, fermentation temp., etc all are the true variables in consistency.
2.) Primary and Secondary in the same container. Unless you're aging for a super-extended period of time, secondary isn't necessary.
3.) No transfers and no racking - 80% less work. Sorry guys, but unless you've broken the laws of physics, there's still a transfer taking place as you need to package. And what is the 80% statistic based off of?
4.) Better Quality Product with no sediment contamination. I'm taking this to mean that there's no sediment in the finished product, and not contamination in the wild yeast or bacterial sense. But again, nothing a cold crash can't accomplish in a traditional carboy or bucket.
5.) Increased Sanitation with Less Contamination. Fermentation vessel should have nothing to do with the brewer's ability to sanitize. With those fittings, valves, and collection vessel, it seems like there's more to sanitize than a regular carboy or bucket and more places that could harbor a source of infection.
6.) Less Oxygen Exposure. I guess, but I can purge my carboys and kegs with CO2 just the same.
7.) Ability to Harvest Yeast and save $100s. You can do this with carboys and buckets as well. Plus, that collection bulb looks a little small, but that could just be me.
And how are you going to temp control that guy on the wall mount?
Well, good job talking me out of it guys! I loved the idea of one container that does everything, from primary to bottling, but it looks combersome to carry and store, and If I can't use it at our place there's no point.
Plus, doesn't water weigh like 8 lbs per gallon,? Ya better put that thing into some serious studs!
Cheers!
So I haven't taken a look at these since Fastrack bought the company that makes them, but I had taken a look at some of the older versions. I agree with what everyone above has been saying, that its an awkward proposition to handle using these as they have to be mounted on the wall. It is true that a conical does help if you're going to be doing things with yeast, but for what the majority of folks in CHAOS are doing, a nice better bottle or something similar is a great fermenter.
As far as the cost of one of these versus a inductor tank (the plastic conical that I made is here: http://www.chaosbrewclub.net/forum/equipment/plastic-conical-fermenter), these are a bit cheaper, but if you got a small plastic conical like I did you can build one out cheaply (which as Conrad mentioned, I did not) for just around $200, less if you don't want to have the stand with it.
I also know that Adam York has these (http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f11/plastic-barrel-fermenter-10-gal-197336/) and has been very happy with them, and they even fit nicely in the ferm room and they're much cheaper if you're looking to move into larger batches.
Oh... my... god. Why haven't we done this? http://thechive.com/2013/09/17/guys-rig-up-buddies-plumbing-with-beer-wh...