Hey all! Wanted to get some opinions on if its worth trying to upgrade my Fermenator or replace it with a Spike.
I have a 14 Gallon Fermenator and want to add fermentation control, which I have priced out at around 170 bucks for the coil and jacket, which is the easy part. The hard part, I want to also upgrade the dump and racking ports to larger and more useful sizes.. So, I would attempt to use Bobby's True Weldless bulkheads to upgrade the racking port to 1.5 inch TC and the dump to 2 inch. Assuming that would work I'm looking at around another $120.00. So, for simple math, call it an even $300.00 to upgrade, assuming nothing goes wrong expanding the existing holes and creating new ones in the existing lid.
The reason I am considering doing this is because I picked up a new Spike CF15 and love the larger ports and ability to use all the temp control features from 5 to 15 gallons. So, the question is, spend $300 to upgrade (half the cost of another CF15) or sell the Blichmann and put that towards getting another CF15? Currently, my thinking is to sell the Blichmann because there are addition added features the Spike does which the Blichmann does not, the main one being under-pressure fermentation and I don't know how small of a batch I can do in the Blichmann and still utilize the cooling coil.
Would love some of your thoughts.
I have a 14 Gallon Fermenator and want to add fermentation control, which I have priced out at around 170 bucks for the coil and jacket, which is the easy part. The hard part, I want to also upgrade the dump and racking ports to larger and more useful sizes.. So, I would attempt to use Bobby's True Weldless bulkheads to upgrade the racking port to 1.5 inch TC and the dump to 2 inch. Assuming that would work I'm looking at around another $120.00. So, for simple math, call it an even $300.00 to upgrade, assuming nothing goes wrong expanding the existing holes and creating new ones in the existing lid.
The reason I am considering doing this is because I picked up a new Spike CF15 and love the larger ports and ability to use all the temp control features from 5 to 15 gallons. So, the question is, spend $300 to upgrade (half the cost of another CF15) or sell the Blichmann and put that towards getting another CF15? Currently, my thinking is to sell the Blichmann because there are addition added features the Spike does which the Blichmann does not, the main one being under-pressure fermentation and I don't know how small of a batch I can do in the Blichmann and still utilize the cooling coil.
Would love some of your thoughts.