What This Tank Actually Does

A conical fermenter between 100 L and 3000 L covers two different jobs: pilot batches for recipe development, and volume production for a packaging brewery. Both are built on the same platform — a vertical shell with a 60° or 70° cone, cooling jackets on the cone and lower cylinder, and a top manway large enough for dry hopping, sampling, and CIP access.

Material and Fabrication

Material choice drives most of the cost difference. SUS304 suits standard ale and lager fermentation and is what most customers specify. SUS316L makes sense where chlorides in the water supply or caustic CIP chemistry are aggressive, or where a tank sits idle with residue between runs. Interior surfaces are ground to 0.4–0.8 µm Ra; welds are pickled and passivated, then inspected. Gaskets are EPDM or silicone, and every port is tri-clamp so the brewery can reconfigure without a welder on site.

Why Temperature Control Decides the Result

Fermentation generates heat, and a few degrees of drift changes ester profile, attenuation, and diacetyl cleanup. Dimple jackets running glycol hold a stable curve. Jacket area has to match the cone volume, not just the total tank size — a 500 L tank with undersized cone jacketing crashes slowly and can stall mid-fermentation.

Working pressure matters as much. We rate tanks at 0.2–0.3 MPa for pressurized fermentation and carbonation, with a mechanical relief valve and a separate vacuum breaker. Never lean on the PRV alone during a cold crash; a blocked blow-off arm can pull a vacuum and deform a cone.

Typical Installations

• Brewpubs and taprooms running 100–500 L batches
• Regional craft breweries at 1000–3000 L per vessel
• Contract brewing and pilot plants validating recipes
• Cider, hard seltzer, and kombucha producers
• Distilleries fermenting wash before stripping

Specifications

Questions We Get Before an Order

Is a steeper cone always better? A 60° cone drains yeast cleanly and is the right default. Go steeper only if you dry hop heavily and need faster trub dumping.

Can I carbonate in the tank? Yes, at rated pressure with a spunding valve. Above 0.3 MPa, ask for a heavier shell and re-rated relief valve.

How is cleaning handled? A rotating spray ball in the manway, a CIP pump, and a racking arm that rotates for both transfer and drain. Full coverage depends on flow rate and pressure — undersized pumps are the usual cause of residue in the cone.

What glycol connections do I need? Inlet and outlet per jacket zone, with isolation valves. Small breweries often run one zone; 2000 L and up usually want two or three for even cooling.

Before You Request a Quote

Know your batch size, beer style, target fermentation temperature, available floor space and ceiling height, and glycol supply temperature. Those five numbers determine tank volume, jacket area, cone angle, and port layout. Send them and we will size the vessel around your process rather than a catalog page.

Tell us your batch size, beer type, number of fermentation tanks and available space. We can recommend the tank volume, cooling area and configuration for your brewery.