Best Fermenters
Some of the most beloved food and beverages around the world undergo a process of fermentation. From kimchi and sauerkraut to beer and cider, that delicious taste we crave comes when starches and sugars are converted into alcohol through fermentation. When it comes to home brewing, fermentation is the final step to yielding a tasty beer, cider, mead, wine or kombucha. While your choice of yeast and the ability to let gravity do its work are important pieces of the puzzle, so is the vessel you choose for the process. If you're looking to make sure your next batch of homebrew comes out as close to professional quality as possible, you'll need the right equipment. To help ensure that result, we took a look at some of the best fermenters available and put them to the test to help you decide which is the best one for your set up.
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Most User-Friendly
FastFerment Conical Fermenter 7.9 Gallon HomeBrew Kit
Fully-Equipped Fermentation Kit
With it’s single-step system and conical design, the FastFerment Conical Fermenter helps create consistently high-quality beers, wines, and ciders without the extra steps of transferring and racking using extra buckets and carboys.
What We Liked
Amateur home brewers will love the FastFerment Conical Fermenter for the time and effort it saves in creating high-quality brews. Its gravity-fed design allows primary and secondary fermentation–steps that often require extra time and equipment–to occur in a single vessel. The system is very beginner friendly and is equipped with everything you need to achieve–as the name implies–fast fermentation. The vessel offers a wide-mouth top to easily add ingredients. This vessel also features a bottle filling attachment, wall-mounting hardware, and stainless steel thermowell. Get it here.
Most Compact
BrewDemon Conical Fermenter
Perfect for Small Batch Brewing
Specifically designed for beer, wine, cider and kombucha recipes up to 2.5 gallons, this kit includes everything you need to yield crisp, clean and clear finished products in a durable, easy to use vessel.
What We Liked
While many home brewing kits require the use of bulky 5-gallon buckets and a variety of detached equipment, this conical fermenting system from BrewDemon takes the guesswork out of the equation for smaller batches–perfect for beginners. The conical brewing tank fits snuggly into the included base and stands just 16-inches tall and 10-inches wide, meaning it won’t take up a lot of space in your kitchen or garage. It has a large-mouth, screw top opening, built-in venting system that releases CO2 without the need for an airlock. The clear finish allows you to easily inspect the process, and the built-in adjustable flow spigot makes for easy bottling. Buy it now.
Most Durable
Northern Brewer Big Mouth Bubbler
Big Mouth & Big Taste
With a 6.5 gallon volume, this Big Mouth Bubbler from Northern Brewer is the perfect size for primary fermentation of mid-size batches of home-brewed beer, mead, cider, and wine.
What We Liked
While a standard 5-gallon bucket is suitable for some home brewers, this Big Mouth Brewer offers the same simplicity with a better shape that’s easier to clean and virtually indestructible. It’s made of PET plastic with 3-inch thick anti-flex ribs that can easily withstand falls, bumps, or rolling around the garage floor. Its wide mouth allows for easier cleaning, as you can reach your whole arm into the vessel to wipe and dry it clean. Its 6.5-inch lid is airtight, protecting your brew from oxygen contamination, with a port designed to fit most home brewing tools and monitoring equipment. Buy it here.
Most Functional
Brewmaster Brewcraft Homebrew Primary Fermenter
Simple Primary Fermentation
With its simple bucket design and shape, this food-grade 6-gallon bucket with lid provides a simple means to achieve primary fermentation of home brewed beers, wines, meads, and even food products.
What We Liked
At its essence primary fermentation merely requires an airtight container large enough to hold the contents of whatever you’re brewing. That’s why so many beginner home brewers opt for the 5-gallon buckets you can find at any home center. But instead of using something that was created for paint, tools, and rubbish disposal, why not use something specifically designed for the brewing process that’s made from food-grade plastic? That’s what you get with the Brewmaster Brewcraft Homebrew Primary Fermenter Bucket. Its 6-gallon capacity offers the perfect size for most one-off batches of beers and other fermented brews, and is also big enough to yield high quantities of fermented food products like kimchi or sauerkraut. Get it now.