Shopping for a conical fermenter

I have for a long time been looking at a conical fermentor as this would be an alternative to racking the mead again and again. I have been looking at several brands. Basically, I do not trust that the Chinese fermenters are food grade stainless steel, even though they are specified as such, so these was fairly fast out of the equation.

I was also looking at Blichmann's but these are really expensive. They might be great but right now I am not sure if this is the way to go for me.

Over the last year I fell head over heals for the fermentor from Ss Brewtech, but these were not sold outside the US.

As time went by I found that a new home brewing shop opened very close to were I live named Humlecentralen (HERE) - and what do you know - he sold equipment from Ss Brewtech. I was thrilled.

So now I have the Chronical half barrel fermentor equipped with FTSS temperature control - and it is just so sexy..... :). Even Alexander think it is a great toy

I also purchased the leg extensions which I can only highly recommend, because the bottom valve is really positioned low so unless you open directly to a drain you cannot get a tray underneath it unless the fermenter is lifted.

Now that a stainless steel fermenter has entered the scene I also got chemicals for cleaning (TSP) and passivation (StarSan), as recommended by Ss Brewtech.

TSP (tri-sodium-phosphate) is a relatively strong base that is used for cleaning the fermenter. This is done by scrubbing the surfaces with a soft sponge wetted in a TSP solution.

After the cleaning the fermenter is passivated with StarSan which is a solution of phosphoric acid (~50%) which passivates, dodecyl-benzene-sulphonic acid which is a foaming agent (5-15%) and some antibacterial component(s) which is hush hush (proprietary according to the MSDS)

This is the mild version of the passivation process I know from work which is sodium hydroxide wash followed by a nitric acid passivation bath..... Not really a process you want to fiddle with at home in your kitchen

Looking so much forward to try it out