FastFerment FF14G Conical Fermenter - Home-Brew Kit - BPA Free Food grade Primary Carboy Fermenter Beer, Stand, bottling hose and all hardware incl (14 Gallon), White

A must have for wine making at home

This product is not for the faint hearted or for the Soy Boy. The blown mold flashing on the plastic threads need to be filed and smoothed. I used a small triangle file and it took me 20 minutes to make it right. I applied a generous amount of teflon tape, filled the vessel with water and blew in some pressure to exploit any leaks, there were none!!!! For those people whining about this vessel leaking, take it apart and clean the threads with a file. If there is still some leakage use some RTV. Next is the metal base. the threads in the four rods need to be chased with a M6 metric tap as the threads are too shallow for the screws. This took 30 minutes, as I also had to chase the threads on a couple screws that binded because the tapped holes were too shallow on the first attempt. Go deep on those tapped holes and you can't go wrong. In summary this is a cracking deal!!!!. However you need the tools mentioned above and know how to use them. You can't find a 14 gallon conical fermenter for twice this price. I might buy yet another, this will make it 3 for me total.

I read all the low reviews on this and they all seemed to be a valve issue. I followed the instructions inside the manual and valve box to take it apart and also screwed it up as far as I could on the vessel so it bottomed out. No leaks here so it works for me.

Compré dos de estos fermentadores a pesar de haber leído las reseñas negativas. Uno de ellos tenía un derrame serio que nunca pudo sellarse a pesar de agregarle dos cintas Teflon completas. El segundo tenía una fuga al agregar la bola de recolección. Los devolví. Es una lástima porque el FastFerment de 30L es muy bueno.

I can get past the time with a file cleaning up threads, and the miles of Teflon tape you need to keep it from leaking. The 3 gallons of amarone in the tray (thank god I had the foresight to put it in a 20x24 darkroom tray) is a result of the cheap and stupid valve design and connection. The valve screws to the main body. The bulb has a collet plate that pushes against the bottom of the valve with a (too small) rubber o ring to seal, then a threaded collar pulls the bulb up to the valve to make a seal. At least two immediate problems come to light. One, when you try to unscrew the bulb the valve wants to unscrew from the body instead, so you have to hold the valve handle to keep it from moving. Remember the threads and teflon tape? Second, and most importantly, the valve is user disassembleable. The pressure on the o ring and the bulb collet to the valve unscrews the lower race in the valve when you unscrew the bulb. And even though the valve is closed, all the wine comes out. From a design perspective, this seems like an issue that could be avoided with a slightly different valve/pvc configuration. But no, it’s cheap and flawed, and there goes my wine. The stand is flimsy. It holds the fermenter up and keeps it from falling over, but when you’re down there trying to unscrew the bulb, the whole thing is bouncing around- which led to the release of a lot of gas and a wine geyser. Amarone everywhere. Finally, if it were better designed it would still be useless for making wine from grapes. It’s realistically only good for juice or wine kits, and you still need to make a separate batch to top up after primary. You need to leave room for foaming. The inventor says he uses soda or water bottles to fill up the empty space but that still seems a little half ***ed. For about the same money you can get the 16 gallon vevor stainless steel conical fermenter. Don’t bother with this.

The product reflects a great idea. Production is absolutely abysmal. The first fermenter leaked at the joint between the large conical vessel and the shutoff valve joint. The leak came up behind the many, many layers of T tape right along one of the plastic seams. After many attempts at getting a seal, I had applied so many layers of tape it was tricky to get the valve to begin to thread. Phoned FastFerment and discussed the lack of quality control. Response was pretty ambivalent; advised to return the item to Amazon. That was the easy part. Received the replacement unit and followed the assembly steps outlined in the FF video. I had misgivings right away as the seams along the threaded part of the concal fermenter were left quite proud during production. Between the 2 threaded pieces that require tape (upper and lower conical vessels) I applied all the tape supplied, and a new roll bought especially, plus another several layers from another roll. Same story as the previous unit that was returned. Couldn't stop the leaks. I don't give up easily, but there comes a time to throw in the towel. Additionally, I had to clean and oil the threads of the stand legs due to rust that had developed in the bag. To top it off, there was only 2 caps for the bolts that rest on the floor. There were scratches on the outer side of the hose barb. I am not convinced that I was sent a new unit. Any way I look at it, quality control is not a priority for this business. In all honesty, I can not recommend this product, notwithstanding what detailed manufacturing might make it. I have read reviews from those whom have had no issues with the fermenter. Out of the 2 units I received, I had hoped for 1 good one. Not my lucky day.