Slow To See Activity With Conical

[3 Dogs]

I made 13 gallons of ale yesterday and today I didn't see any activity in the blow off container. I peeked in the stopper hole and there was krausen. I have been having trouble getting a seal on my 14 gallon Blichmann. I don't want to tighten it too much because I have already went through one seal. ($30.00) replacement. Is this normal because of all that extra space in the dome? It just fits in the fridge and the only way I can look at the back of the lid is with a mirror. Should I just relax and don't worry?

3 Dogs

[captain carrot]

Make sure the lid is centered on the conical. The only time my lid didn't seal it was off a bit. On the gasket there is a thin rib on one face. Put the rib on the conical side on the lid. When I tighten the clamp on the lid I tighten the clamp screw a little bit at a time and use a small block of wood to tap on the clamp to seat the lid seal. I tighten the clamp until there is a half inch gap between the ends of the clamp. I havn't lost a lid seal yet and only didn't seal once after years of use and dozens of batches.
Good Luck!

[Cliff]

Don't worry be happy.

You have a failure to a seal at the gasket most probably. It happened to me once and since then I use a little dab of petroleum jelly on the gasket.

Perpuzzling it was.

[3 Dogs]

I think the rib is on the wrong side. Should I turn it around or leave it as it is?

3 Dogs

[3 Dogs]

I took the lid off and turned the seal around where the rib is on the conical side. 20 seconds later...bubbles.

Thanks for the replies. I appreciate it. Now I can hear from upstairs what it is doing. It really bugged me that I knew there was good activity going on, but no bubbles. I can now relax.

Cheers,


3 Dogs

[Cliff]

I think the rib is on the wrong side. Should I turn it around or leave it as it is?

3 Dogs

HA HA HA I wondered about that too once. then It dawned on me that the damn gasket needs to seal against BOTH the lid AND the conical so it makes no difference where you put the little ridge.
I think the Blichman Gasket is poorly engineered. Or not engineered at all. It's too damn hard. Whether it's an EPDM or Buna N material it's too damn hard and ought to be thicker and softer.

Surf around looking for Brewery lubricants and get the MSDS sheets. Every single one of them is using petroleum jelly or mineral oil which are both the same thing only the Jelly is high molecular weight mineral oil and the other low.
Get yourself a little squeeze tube of Vaseline and just lube your gasket with that.

The prime reason for seal failure is the alignment between the lid and the body. There is nothing about the conical that forces a good alignment and it's way easy to knock it out when putting it all together.
I've contemplated modifying my conical to accept little SST tabs projecting down from the lid against the inside of the conical tank to force a precise alignment.

[spiderwrangler]

Give Blichmann feedback on this... seems like someone who would take that into account in building them better.

[Cliff]

Give Blichmann feedback on this... seems like someone who would take that into account in building them better.

I know people who have begged them to produce a water jacketed conical.
Their response has consistently been to advise people to just put it in a modified fridge. I think that's a terrible answer but I understand it. Every nickel you spend at manufacturing is multiplied several times at retail. They may have done some costing out of various options and figured that the market would not bear the costs.

I remember when Ford was looking into an all SST exhaust back in the early 1970s.
They figured it'd be $25.00 at factory and add about $100.00 at dealer cost so the marketing people, who will kill to save a nickel, killed the idea.

I don't know what Blichmann's margins are, but I've costed out getting Conicals in bulk from China and the results I got didn't make it appear that Blichmann has a whole lot of room to move between his costs and shipping and dealer costs.
He went one further than me by paying to have tooling made for cold forming (spinning or deep drawing) his conicals so he can eliminate welding. I would have been happy with good welds. But alas sanitary welding is not to be had in China.