Craft A Brew - The Catalyst Fermentation System - 6.5 gal Conical Fermenter for Beer Home Brewing and Wine Making

To keep is short, everything came packages well. Assembly was 15 minutes tops and super easy. I love having a visual on my brews in progress, it is honestly a game changer. The valve and mason jar on the bottom is also great because its simple enough to operate and remove the trub and excess materials from the beer. The top latches down easy enough and the plug at top works great.For the plug, I personally had it in hot water with Star San along with blowoff tube so i could put slip the tubing in easier. It is a hard plug. Let the plug cool before you try to push into the cover hole, it may slip through if you push too hard. I may have done that, but once it cooled its perfect.The biggest thing I found on other threads it that people are installing the valve upside down. The handle, meaning the piece you grab, should be pointing down towards mason jar/floor for the valve to be fully open. If you put it on the other way, the handle will hit the container and not open fully.Once again, love this product. Will recommend to everyone and will personally be buying another in late spring to get the summer brews going! Happy brewing everyone!

I'm fairly new to brewing my own beer. During my journey of discovery I've learned that the single biggest obstacle to a "REALLY" good batch is sediment. Hops sediment, to be specific.The brewing process requires that you move the wort (or unfermented beer) from the cooking vessel to the container it will reside in during the fermentation process. Then you need to transfer it again to a vessel where the sugar solution is added, and yet again into the bottles where the batch will finish.The goal is to reduce the amount of sediment in the wort during each transfer. This is NOT an easy task - invariably, some sediment is always transferred, which shows up in each bottle of beer.The Catalyst, however, completely removes sediment from the equation. Sure - there will be sediment from the transfer from the cooking vessel, but the design of this system allows the sediment to settle into a mason jar that you can easily segregate from the brewed batch to dispose of. It's so easy to add the additional fermentation sugar and to load up individual bottles from the Catalyst.This device has been a game-changer for me and my hobby. I can produce beer that is completely free of any sediment, and rivals any commercially available product for clarity.Also, just wanted to add that Craft A Brew is an amazing company. Their customer service folks are VERY smart. And patient. They LISTEN to your concerns, and are more than capable of offering really helpful advice. A really good product from a really good DIY provider. Whether you're experienced, or a newbie to home brewing, you just can't go wrong while working with the Craft A Brew folks.

I have been brewing in this continuously for the past 2 years, and it has held up well. The gaskets are holding up well with no dry rotting, and the construction is still sturdy. I recommend using a tilt/digital hydrometer to not have to open the lid to check gravity while brewing. The conical shape and easy trub removal makes for some clean beers, though I recommend having a second wide-mouth mason jar to quickly swap on when removing the trub to reduce chance of infection. Great purchase!

This fermenter is really nice, very sturdy components, no leaks. Crystal clear bucket makes it easy and fun to watch your beer going crazy. I definitely recommend it. A few $$ more than others, but seems to be worth it.

Brewed 2 beers using this fermentation system and it is OK.1) for 200 dollars I wish the stand was more robust.2) the angle of the conical is too shallow. Yeast and trub gets caught. Not a big deal until you go to transfer to a keg. When transferring you create a vortex and it helps to pick up the unwanted yeast and trub. Also, after you attach the transfer funnel opening the valve however slowly disturbs the sentiment on the conical adding to the frustration.3) cleaning out the catch jar is nice however you need to do it several times before you really get rid of the bulk of the yeast. This is especially true when making big beers. Made a stout with an OG 1.067 and emptied the included jar 4 times. This means that if you start with 5.5 gallons you'll be lucky to have 5 when you're finished.4) this brings me to my next point I wish I had a capacity of 7+ gallons. This would enable me to make enough to "rack", fill a 5 gallon keg and a few bottles.5) the lid fits nicely and works well but the stopper needs more surface area to hold onto. I've blown the stopper out several times even using a blow out tube. Maybe if the cap was domed giving more head space might help?6) the bottom valve works very well and is very nicely constructed. I was worried about it leaking but it has been perfect.Conclusion: I would buy another one if these areas were addressed but at 200 dollars the current design is not worth it.Update: was contacted by the manufacturer who was helpful in his advice. However, I am sticking with my assessment of The Catalyst needing design updates as I sold mine after only a few batches because of my frustrations. Thank you to Kyle at