Built for volume, not for looks

A conical fermenter earns its place once a brewery moves past pilot batches. These vessels run from 500 L to 20,000 L and larger, stand on their own legs, and let yeast and trub settle into the cone instead of sitting under the beer. We build single-wall and jacketed versions. The jacketed tank is the one that lets you crash cool in place rather than pushing beer into a separate bright tank.

Material and fabrication

SUS304 covers most ales and lagers. For wort high in chloride, or sour programs with Lactobacillus, we quote 316L instead. Inner shell 3 mm, outer cladding 2 mm, dimpled jackets on the cone and lower cylinder. Welds are TIG, argon purged on the product side, then ground and passivated. Interior polish runs 0.4 to 0.8 µm Ra; a rougher surface holds soil and makes CIP unreliable. Tri-clamp fittings in DIN or SMS, matched to the hoses you already have on the floor.

Cooling, pressure, cleaning

Glycol at −4 °C through the jackets handles normal crash cooling, but a 20,000 L tank needs far more jacket area than a 2,000 L one. Buyers comparing quotes on price alone tend to miss that. Working pressure is 0.2 MPa, hydro-tested at 0.3 MPa; the relief valve and adjustable CO2 blow-off are set and sealed before shipment. A rotating spray ball in the top manway covers CIP, and the cone outlet runs 2 in. or 3 in. with a racking arm above it.

Typical specification range

Questions that come up before quoting

Small craft brewery or commercial plant? Under 2,000 L, a single-zone jacket and 2 in. outlet are usually enough. Above that, plan two cooling zones and a 3 in. outlet, or transfers slow down and yeast drops poorly.

Do I need a conical bottom at all? If you harvest yeast or dry hop heavily, yes. For filtered lager produced in a separate maturation tank, a flat-bottom vessel is cheaper and easier to clean.

Can I add tanks later? Yes, as long as the glycol chiller and header sizing account for the final tank count from day one. Resizing a chiller mid-expansion costs more than buying it correctly once.

Send us your batch size, beer type, number of fermentation tanks and available ceiling height. We will come back with tank volume, jacket area, cone angle and connection layout that fits the space you actually have.