I don’t make as many full-sized batches of 5 or more gallons as I used to, and outside of experimental batches or when I want to whip something up really quick, I find 1 gallon batches to be too small. These days, there are a lot of options for 2.5 gallon half-batches – but which fermenter is the best? I’ve tried a few, but Demon Brewing’s BrewDemon Conical Fermenter has been my favorite by far.
While the BrewDemon’s conical shape is a bit gimmicky, it’s otherwise an exceptional vessel for 2.5 gallon batches. It has ample headspace, the wide mouth makes for easy cleaning, and it has a clever spigot setup. These features (and more) are why it is my go-to for primary fermentation at that batch size.
I’m not going to spend a lot of time reviewing the conical shape of the BrewDemon. The cone is interesting, but a bit gimmicky. Other vessels probably do the whole “conical” thing better.
However, conical pros and/or cons aside, the BrewDemon is my absolute favorite fermentation vessel for primary fermentation of 2.5 gallon half-batches.
It has every feature I look for in an inexpensive fermenter: solid construction, a wide mouth, and enough room for plenty of extra headspace. Plus, the spigot setup is the best of any fermenter I’ve ever seen.
Honestly, the form factor is basically perfect for half-batches.
You may notice that a lot of the features and headlines in this review are similar to the one I put out previously about the Little Big Mouth Bubbler, and that’s no coincidence. I stated in that article that the Little Big Mouth Bubbler was basically a dream come true, and the de facto standard of what I’m looking for in fermenters these days.
Well, the BrewDemon feels like a larger Little Big Mouth Bubbler. It has nearly all of the same benefits, in a size and shape optimal for larger batches.
That’s not to say it’s without flaws, however. There are a few things about the BrewDemon that I wish were different or better, which I’ll describe further below. But none of these are deal-breakers; in fact, they don’t really cause any issues with my batches.
They definitely didn’t keep me from going back and buying more BrewDemon fermenters after I tried it for the first time! This fermenter seems to get the most use of anything I own these days.
The Features: Why the BrewDemon is SO GOOD
You may notice that the positive features I list for the BrewDemon are mostly unrelated to the conical shape.
I love the BrewDemon’s form factor, but it’s mostly for a bunch of other reasons. If you’re looking for a fermenter specifically for its conical shape, I can’t help you there, as that’s not my priority.
In fact, if you’re hoping to e.g. salvage yeast immediately after flocculation, you might look elsewhere to find a conical vessel with a butterfly valve or other yeast capture device below the cone.
But if you’re looking for a relatively cheap fermenter that’s easy to clean and easy to work with, the BrewDemon is perfect.
1. The Wide Mouth Makes for Easy Cleaning
Fermentation is messy. All of the yeast gunk and krausen gets caked onto every inside surface of your vessel, and it sits there for weeks before you’re able to finally rack, bottle, or keg your batch and get around to cleaning.
This is exacerbated by the size: a one-gallon vessel can often be popped into the dishwasher, but bigger fermenters won’t fit and need to be cleaned by hand.
For that reason, the number one thing I look for in any new fermenter is a wide mouth. If it doesn’t have a wide enough mouth, I won’t even consider it for a primary fermentation vessel.
(Bulk aging is another story – narrow-necked vessels like carboys do have their place in the process. It’s just not here.)
Thanks to the BrewDemon’s huge opening, I am able to reach my whole arm inside and really scrub all of the gunk and grime away from every inch of the vessel.
Some fermenters – and, maybe most notably, corny kegs – have wide mouths, but they’re not quite wide enough for me to get my whole arm in. It’s really hard to clean the bottoms of my kegs!
But, with the BrewDemon, I can reach every part of the inside of the vessel. And that’s a huge deal.
2. There’s Plenty of Headspace for 2.5-Gallon Half-Batches
For primary fermentation, you always want your vessel to be a bit bigger than the volume of your batch.
Like I’ve already said, fermentation is messy. And you want to keep that mess inside the vessel!
All it takes is one gusher to teach a new homebrewer this lesson: some fermentations can foam aggressively and it can blow up and out of your airlock – resulting in loss of product at best, and likely a huge mess.
The BrewDemon is listed as a 3 gallon vessel, but it seems to be just a touch larger!
That’s perfect when brewing batches that are half of the standard size. If you’re planning to make 2.5 gallons of beer, wine, or mead, the BrewDemon provides just over a half gallon of extra space – allowing you to not only start with a slightly greater volume of wort or must (to account for loss) but also to leave room for even the most aggressively foaming krausen.
Even my most vigorous, Verdant IPA yeast-driven fermentations don’t make a mess when I brew in one of my BrewDemon fermenters!
3. It Has a Spigot – With an Unbeatable Seal!
If you’ve read any of my other articles, you’ll know that I’m a big advocate of spigots on fermentation vessels.
Unless you’re going big and using expensive fermenters that can do pressurized transfers, a spigot is by far the best way to transfer your liquid when racking, bottling, or kegging (not to mention taking gravity readings!).
You can simply let gravity do the work and transfer the liquid, while minimizing exposure to oxygen or other contaminants.
The BrewDemon doesn’t just have a spigot – it has possibly the best spigot setup I’ve ever seen on a fermentation vessel.
The guys over at Demon Brewing were really clever when they designed this product: they provided a flat surface where the spigot goes!
See, the biggest complaint some homebrewers have about spigots (and why some actually avoid them) is because it can be difficult to create a proper seal. Most vessels – most notably, buckets – are cylindrical, with a rounded surface everywhere, including the spot where the spigot goes.
Since both the spigot itself and the rubber o-ring that creates the seal are flat, it can be really difficult to get them seated just right on a rounded surface so that they come into contact all of the way around without tightening the nut too much.
But with the BrewDemon’s clever flat surface around the spigot hole, you can get a perfect seal easily every single time.
(I’ve only had a leak once – and that was user error)
4. The Plastic is Thick and Solid
Some fermenters are made with really thin and flimsy plastic. They don’t feel like they can hold up to carrying a full batch in them without falling apart.
Even Demon Brewing’s other vessel, the 1-gallon Little Demon, seems to lack quality.
But the 3-gallon BrewDemon feels solid. It feels like you can really put pressure on it, drop it, or whatever, and it will hold up just fine.
And it has! I have a few of these fermenters, and I use them extensively – and they’ve all held up, even after many batches.
4. The Semi-Transparent Walls Allow Some Visibility, Yet Are Opaque Enough to Protect Against Sunlight
My biggest gripe about the Little Big Mouth Bubbler was that it was completely transparent, providing no protection from sunlight.
In fact, that’s my biggest gripe with nearly every fermentation vessel on the market: most glass fermenters are too transparent, while vessels like plastic buckets and anything made from stainless steel are usually completely opaque, providing no visibility to see what’s actually going on inside.
The BrewDemon finds a perfect middle ground: it’s a semi-transparent white.
I’ve long said (including in my LBMB review) that I just don’t understand why companies don’t make semi-transparent, colored fermenters! It’s the de facto standard for bottles in the beer and wine industry (they’re almost always dark green or brown so the beer or wine doesn’t get skunked).
Well, Demon Brewing has done it, and I’m incredibly happy with the result.
The BrewDemon is just transparent enough that you can monitor your batch for signs of mold or other contamination. Some brewing veterans will tell you that this isn’t important, because if your sanitation process is good enough, you don’t need to see inside.
I disagree. I’ve been doing this a while, and I’ve lost a batch to mold before. I feel a lot more comfortable seeing, at the very least, the surface of my batch.
However, fully transparent vessels allow light in. This is fine if you keep your brews in a closet, where the only lights are from lamps or bulbs, but any sunlight from a window has the chance to taint your batch due to lightstrickenness.
But with the BrewDemon, the semi-opaque white plastic provides some extra protection. I still keep my vessels in a closet away from the light, but I don’t need to worry as much now if my wife leaves the closet door open.
5. Tiny Bunghole (Separate from Lid) Allows For Easy Access While Limiting Contact With Air
Having a bunghole that is separate from the main wide-mouthed opening is something that I didn’t know I needed before I owned a fermenter that had it, but now I don’t ever want to go back to not having it.
It’s just so wildly convenient. And good for the brew, too!
With any inexpensive fermentation vessel like this, you’re going to open it up – at the very least, you’ll need to rack, bottle, or keg the batch eventually.
This, of course, exposes the batch to the outside air, creating a chance for contamination or (more likely) oxidation.
Oxidation is the biggest obstacle we need to overcome as homebrewers to go from mediocre brews to really good ones!
By being able to remove only the bung when needing to access the liquid, you create a much smaller hole through which air can enter. This minimizes the exposure and protects your batch.
The only thing better is to be able to do a pressurized, closed transfer – and the equipment necessary for that is expensive!
I do wish the BrewDemon’s bung and bunghole were of higher quality, which I’ll discuss further down in the “Flaws” section of the review. However, it definitely does the job, and I’m just happy that this is a feature included in the fermenter.
6. The Conical Shape, While Gimmicky, Does Seem to Help When Racking Off of Sediment Layer
I’ve left this as the last positive feature on the list on purpose. The conical shape is nice, but it’s a bit gimmicky, and not at all the reason I bought the vessel in the first place.
The conical shape serves its intended purpose, though, and it does so successfully in my experience: all of the yeast sediment gets collected at the bottom, in the cone, settling just below the spigot nicely.
It seems fairly consistent, too: whether I’m using something like Verdant IPA, which creates a huge colony and a thick yeast cake, or Red Star Champagne Yeast, which ends up a bit thinner, the sediment layer remains just below the spigot.
As a result, you end up with much less loss of product than you otherwise would.
I will note that I’ve discovered it works a bit better if you don’t keep the vessel perfectly upright. Due to the way the area around the spigot juts out a little bit, it creates a bit of a shelf just underneath it. In the first batch I brewed with the BrewDemon, a bunch of the flocculated yeast collected on this shelf, right around the spigot – and got sucked into the keg during transfer.
Ever since, I’ve simply tilted the vessel back a bit, pointing the spigot upwards at an angle. This also puts the “shelf” at an angle, allowing the yeast to slide backwards away from the spigot and into the conical bottom.
This is doable thanks to the way the stand that supports the fermenter is a separate piece. While it’s annoying to have two separate, disconnected parts in a lot of ways, it does make this tilt possible, which is nice.
What Are the BrewDemon’s Flaws?
The BrewDemon conical fermenter doesn’t really have a ton of flaws: just a few, and none of them are deal-breakers.
But there are a few things about the BrewDemon that I wish were a bit different, or constructed with a bit of a higher quality.
1. The Bunghole Seems…. Flimsy?
First of all, the BrewDemon comes with this weird little cap to put over the bunghole, which is supposed to replace the airlock and protect your batch. Throw that out – it’s not any better than putting a bit of cheesecloth or something over it.
It does come with a bung, which allows you to use a standard airlock or blowoff tube. And I like this – it’s a necessary feature, in my opinion, to be able to use a standard airlock, and as I’ve already pointed out, having a bunghole separate from the wide-mouth lid is incredibly useful.
I do have some gripes with the construction quality of the bung and bunghole: it almost seems like an afterthought in an otherwise well-thought-out product.
The bung itself is mostly fine, though I do wish it was a more standardized size. It’d be nice to use the same bungs that I already have for everything else instead of buying specialized ones that only fit the BrewDemon. But that’s capitalism for you.
The bigger issue is with the bunghole itself.
First, the size is just a tiny bit off. It almost feels like it’s a hair too big for the bung that comes with it.
On top of that, the plastic around the hole seems thinner than the rest of the fermenter. It just feels flimsy.
These two things combined make it feel like the bung just doesn’t sit right in the bunghole. It feels like, if you push just a bit too much, it’ll pop right through and fall into your brew.
Granted, that’s not actually happened to me, and probably won’t unless I try to do it intentionally…. But it just doesn’t feel like this specific part of the vessel was constructed well.
As a result, it feels like the bung just doesn’t seat right into the hole, and maybe doesn’t create the best seal. Again, it seems to actually be fine, but it just feels wrong.
(Compare it to the Little Big Mouth Bubbler, which provides a raised bit of thick plastic around the bunghole, creating a larger surface area for the bung to push into and thus creating a better seal).
2. Plastic Construction Has Its Downsides
I’ve written previously about the upsides and downsides of different construction materials for fermentation vessels, so I won’t rehash that completely here.
But, in summary, while plastic can be nice, it also needs to be replaced more often than other, more sturdy materials.
It’s more prone to getting scratched – and those scratches are impossible to sanitize.
Additionally, if you do ever get an infected batch in a plastic fermenter like the BrewDemon, you have to assume that vessel is permanently contaminated and will infect all future batches.
However, if you’re even just a tiny bit careful, you’ll be able to keep your BrewDemon for a long time.
I have been using mine for a while, and I’ve yet to have any issues with them where they need to be replaced.
Honestly, for anything larger than 1 gallon batches, I avoid glass. And since stainless steel is expensive, that leaves me stuck with plastic for most things.
And while plastic does have its downsides, at this size, the pros outweigh the cons.
3. Conical Shape is Kinda Gimmicky
If you’re looking specifically for a conical fermenter, hoping to take advantage of all of the benefits of its conical shape, you might want to look elsewhere.
Usually, conicals are designed so that the brewer can remove the yeast sediment from the cone, typically with use of something like a butterfly valve. Being able to do so is nice – not only can you more easily reuse the yeast without waiting until fermentation is over or needing to perform yeast washing, but you can also bulk age the batch off of the lees without racking – or even opening the container!
However, you can’t do any of that with the BrewDemon. It is just one solid piece of plastic with no valves, which almost defeats the purpose of the cone shape in the first place.
It is nice for the reason I listed above – that it helps to collect the sediment nicely below the spigot, reducing loss and keeping any lees from getting transferred during racking or packaging – but other than that, it’s kind of gimmicky and almost pointless.
But, to be honest, that’s not really a downside as much as it is a simple observation. It doesn’t much matter what shape the vessel is, as long as it has all of the features that make it useful.
And the BrewDemon definitely does!
Conclusion
If you’re looking specifically for a top-tier conical fermenter, with all of the benefits that the conical shape can provide, then Demon Brewing’s BrewDemon is probably not what you’re looking for.
But if you’re looking for an amazing all-around fermenter for 2.5 gallon half-batches that just happens to be conical, then look no further!
The BrewDemon is an exceptional vessel for primary fermentation. It’s well-constructed, with the exact form factor that I look for in any fermenter.
I couldn’t be happier with this purchase (obviously – I’ve bought several!) and I think you’ll feel the same way.
