The Grainfather Glycol Chiller and Conical Fermenter
Conical Fermenter $695, Glycol Chiller $998, grainfather.com 
If you want it to taste like the pros, brew it like the pros. Once it’s in the fermentor, so much depends on how we control the environment. To test how well this system manages that, we nearly abused it.
Pros and Cons
The conical has all the bells and whistles: 60° cone, jacketed wall, tri-clamp lid, sample valve, trub dump valve, closed-transfer capability, and temp control. The chiller, meanwhile, can keep up to four of those fermentors cold. Its power is impressive. It turns on and drops down without hesitation and hits the conical hard. I assume that four conicals would press its performance, but it brings the cold. The controls are easy. Next, the conical: Stainless vessels are notorious for coming with a dogged layer of machine oil. I did a full tear-down and cleaning with PBW and quadruple-strength Star San, then a hard rinse with boiling water. Despite my rigor, after the first fermentation, there was a bit of the tell-tale black foam around the wall; my cleaning wasn’t complete. The beer had no oil or chemical taste, but you have been warned: Clean it twice, and do that three times.
A caveat: The tri-clamp valve on the bottom for dumping trub, collecting yeast, and transferring finished beer is awesome, in theory. If the dump port were threaded for a barb or accepted a 1/2" tube, it would be much more functional. Also, when tearing down and replacing, the working area underneath the cone is tight. Holding together the valve parts while securing the clamp proved trying for my fat fingers. I should have paid more attention to the orientation of the ports to the conical legs. Rookie lessons.
Just to be mean, I dumped my wort in at 70°F (21°C) and let the chiller bring it down to 40°F (4°C). The glycol unit, happy at 24°F (-4°C), surprised me with how smartly it soaked up the heat. I looked away for 30 minutes and missed when it stopped chilling.
Verdict
The glycol unit is a wonder—powerful and intuitive. The conical was finicky to set up, but hiccups were minor compared to how easy it was once up and running. —Taylor Caron
Blichmann RipTide Pump
$199.99, blichmannengineering.com
Pros and Cons
Setup was easy. It comes with ½” MPT threaded inlet and outlet ports. For my system, I use a three-way valve on the pump inlet, with cam-locks to attach all my hoses. I didn’t have a problem installing the large three-way valve, then rotating the pump head 90 degrees so it’s facing down, with the outlet facing up. The stainless-steel head is sturdy—unlike with plastic pump heads, I didn’t feel like I might damage the threads when I screwed on my fittings. Also, because of the large tri-clamp, the pump head is extremely easy to take off to clean or reposition the pump head. Other pumps I’ve used required the removal of eight screws (with two different types of screw heads), just to take off the pump head, so this is much simpler. Finally, the pump is heavy enough and the base is wide enough—I can just set it on my stand and it doesn’t want to tip over, even with the extra weight of the valve I added. Permanent mounting is easy enough, but for brewers who want to use their pumps in different places during their brew day, this will work really well.
One of the best things about this pump—which Blichmann doesn’t even mention on their website—it’s really quiet. I have an electric system that is already pretty quiet, and the noise of this pump is about the same as the noise of my heating element running, or even filling the kettle with water. Compared to the loud whine of other pumps, this is a massive benefit. The integrated on/off switch is a nice touch for brewers who don’t use some kind of control panel, and the integrated needle valve is a great idea. When using the pump during wort-cooling, this style of valve will allow much better temperature control compared to a standard ball valve because it has a more linear response. The one downside: There’s no good way to tell the position of the valve at a glance, like there is with a ball valve. Make sure it’s closed before disconnecting your hoses.
Verdict
Overall, this is an amazing pump. Although it’s priced higher than common pumps, it has a lot of options built into it that would need to be added anyway, such as a control valve and a switch. On top of that, it’s sturdy, quiet, and with the tri-clamp to remove the pump head, much more user-friendly. It sets the bar for what a pump designed specifically for homebrewing should be. —Andy Mitchell