What are the advantages of the conical fermenters?

If you can afford one, a conical fermenter will make brewing beer a lot easier.

The biggest advantage is that racking becomes a very easy task. Once your beer is done fermenting, the conical has a valve at the bottom that allows you to transfer the beer to the secondary using gravity. You simply place your carboy under the valve, connect the valve to some siphon tubing, and turn on the valve. The valve sits above the point where all of the trub settles, so that none of it makes its way into the secondary.

This means that your beer will not take nearly as long to clear. When you’re done, you simply use the bottom dump mechanism to get all that gunk out of there, then rinse the fermenter clean. The conical also makes it easy to draw samples for hydrometer readings without opening the fermenter.