Coolship build and spontaneous fermentation

[Dcpcooks]

I was a lucky recipient of an old store display stand. I'm not aware of the history of the unit as a friend saw it at a flee market. He sent me a text and asked if me if I could serve beer in it. I replied that I could make beer with it!

So here a brief outline of what I hope to accomplish.



Check for a water tight seal and confirm volume.

Remove the pan from the base and inspect for issues.

Evaluate for use as a coolship.

Replace the old drain fitting and come up with a drain and valve set up.


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As received
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Old drain installed. I stuck a rag in the drain and filled it with 5 gallons of hot PBW. It was water tight and looked like it would clean up nicely.
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I had to make a spot for it by a window. This was a huge project as I had shelves with junk accumulated over 17 years in the house. It's finally home. The oil sign was a gift from my daughter and it looked cool on the old wood. View attachment ImageUploadedByHome Brew1490747397.297908.jpg

I removed the old drain measured and searched for a new drain which I could clean and keep clean. After a few searches I ruled out a bulk head fitting. I considered the threaded triclamp bulk head piece from Ss but I wanted to collect as much wort as possible. The base is 1/2" plywood so I was worried about small leaks.

The drain cut out is 1.5" which was very fortunate. I settled on and ordered a 1.5" tri clamp ferrule and triclamp valve from Brewers hardware. They were very helpful with size and selection.

Next I needed a welder.
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I found a local shop owner who was willing to give it a shot for a little cash. He did a great job welding the ferrule it. He cleaned up the old welds in the corners as well.

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After returning it to the stand I attached the valve and checked for water tight.

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It's water tight and holds 10 gallons with a little room to spare. I'm going to pump the water back to my hlt and bring it up to a boil and return it to the coolship to check how long it takes to cool from a boil to 65. The unit is plywood and also has a 1/2" closed cell foam board that wraps around the sides of the unit. I had to pull the foam from the bottom to allow clearance for the clamp and valve.

Based on what I've been reading ( Tonsmeire, milk the funk wiki and podcasts) I'm hoping I can get close to 8-10 hours of cooling time which seems like a decent average time for commercial examples. I'm thinking the insulation and wood base may be a positive pre test. I'm planning on testing tomorrow since I have a light afternoon and I can probably sneak out to play with beer.


I have two ten gallon barrels that will be ready for sours in a few months plus 2 five gallon barrels that have been soured for a few years. I'm thinking of brewing a 10 gallon batch to split between the 5's as a first batch. Make a turbid mash and cool with the windows open for 12-24 hours and the rack into the 5's after a good cleaning.

Then I think I'd like to try two different batches of spontaneous fermented beers in the 10's. the 10's are resident microbe free at this point.

Cheers!

 

[Dcpcooks]

Photos of the top weld and side insulation. View attachment ImageUploadedByHome Brew1490750402.705244.jpgView attachment ImageUploadedByHome Brew1490750421.362091.jpg

 

[505-Brewer]

This is cool. Surface area to volume looks like it might be too high. If i recall using a sanke keg is about the right ratio. There should be some info on aha site on this too. Was a talk at AHA in San Diego on this.

 

[Hanglow]

It looks great! Will be interesting to hear about the beers you can make from it

Elgoods coolers are about a foot deep I think, so that does look a little shallow

 

[crane]

This is cool. Surface area to volume looks like it might be too high. If i recall using a sanke keg is about the right ratio. There should be some info on aha site on this too. Was a talk at AHA in San Diego on this.

The sour hour did an episode on cool ships and the main takeaway I got was that for the homebrew batch size your boil kettle is the ideal dimensions for a cool ship. Shallow pans can cool down too quickly and you don't need the extra surface area they give you.

Given that the OPs cool ship is partially insulated it might hold up temps longer. Hopefully it works out as he already sunk some change in it and it looks cool too. If it were me, I would have done the temperature testing first before cleaning and modifying it.

If you think about it we really have it made on the homebrew level. Finish your boil, turn off your kettle and walk away for a day. Come back and transfer to your fermenter. Done. No extra vessel needed.

 

[Dcpcooks]

It's a little too shallow based on what I've read but this unit is wrapped in closed cell foam and wood so we shall see. Based on the excell wiki from milk the funk it's surface area is too great for the volume. I'll put a few beers through it and see what I get.

I just transferred 11.5 gallons of 190 degree water to see how long it takes to cool.

 

[chrilr]

Don't forget about evaporation, I think I lose almost 1 gallon from 6 gallons of hot wort. Overnight low was in the mid 30's

 

[Dcpcooks]

Don't forget about evaporation, I think I lose almost 1 gallon from 6 gallons of hot wort. Overnight low was in the mid 30's

Great advice! Thanks.

 

[Dcpcooks]

Total cool time was 9.5 hours from 200 to 64 in a 55 degree garage.

 

[cod3ck]

Subbed! Sour beers would be awesome to get a handle on [emoji482]

 

[oli-aus]

Sounds great. Glad your not being put off by not having the 'correct dimensions'.

 

[OswaldvW]

Subscribed

 

[Sourz4life]

It'll definitely work. I've done quite a few spontaneous batches using a variety of kettles/homemade coolships with an evaporator pan. It not as big of a deal on a homebrew scale, but is much more important on a commercial scale when it comes to surface area to air contact/dimensions for ambient temp cooling. The only issues you'll encounter with that size is cooling rate. You'll either have to put it out pretty late at night and leave for only 5 or so hours, maybe less depending on how cold it gets. You don't want it to get to cold, so you may want to put a probe in it with an alarm or using a temp control with a heating device of some kind to keep it from going under 65F. I'd also suggest possibly acidfying the wort down to 4.5 pH before you put it out unless you have a really firm grasp on what is in the area usually for microbes(check plates are good for that). It'll help keep out alot of enterobacteria as well as help with some mold. You don't need to do that as the enterobacteria phase is usually on 24-72 hours, but its less of a chance of catching something that spoils the batch, which on a homebrew scale can suck sometimes.

 

[cod3ck]

@jamaral -- sounds like you have a wealth of knowledge with sours. Any specific literature you recommend?!

 

[Sourz4life]

Milk the funks wiki as well as the group on facebook. Loads of information. Spontaneous is one of those things where we still know very little about. For sour information in general I'd say milk the funk, sourbeerblog.com, sour hour BN podcast(take some of what they say with a grain of salt as they aren't microbiologist), brettanomycesproject.com, eureka brewing blog, some stuff on suigenerisbrewing blog. And if you want to get really into the science I'd suggest books like Yeast, American sour beers, Art of Fermentation and then Brewing Microbiology as the most advanced one.

 

[cod3ck]

Milk the funks wiki as well as the group on facebook. Loads of information. Spontaneous is one of those things where we still know very little about. For sour information in general I'd say milk the funk, sourbeerblog.com, sour hour BN podcast(take some of what they say with a grain of salt as they aren't microbiologist), brettanomycesproject.com, eureka brewing blog, some stuff on suigenerisbrewing blog. And if you want to get really into the science I'd suggest books like Yeast, American sour beers, Art of Fermentation and then Brewing Microbiology as the most advanced one.

Awesome -- I'll check these out! Thank you! [emoji482]

 

[Dcpcooks]

Finally got a barrel and the time to brew this beer.
Turbid mash via Milk the funk. Collected 20 gallons at 1.050.
Ten in the coolship
Ten in the boil kettle.

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[cod3ck]

Sweet! Stoked to see how this turns out for you! [emoji482]

 

[Dcpcooks]

The spilt batch has cooled down in both samples. The boil kettle batch took 11 hours to cool to 69 degrees. The coolship batch cooled to 66 in 9.5 hours. That's due to the larger surface area on the coolship.

The milk the funk wiki suggests that the boil kettle was closer to the suggested surface area than this particular coolship (mine). So I'd agree that surface area pays a role in rate of cooling and based on my limited split batch experiment you can easily use a boil kettle as a makeshift coolship to capture wild yeast and bacteria. Obviously it's going to take several years to see if there is a significant difference in final results.

 

[Sourz4life]

Now just keep it away from O2 at all costs, purge if you can if you have to open the barrel back up at any time. Usually the first week or 2 is when you'll see any mold if any. But I have gotten some odd things growing in them after a month or 2.

 

[Dcpcooks]

Now just keep it away from O2 at all costs, purge if you can if you have to open the barrel back up at any time. Usually the first week or 2 is when you'll see any mold if any. But I have gotten some odd things growing in them after a month or 2.

Thanks for the heads up. I can purge it if needed. I don't plan on touching it for a while. Maybe in 2-3 months or so. I have a Vinnie nail too.

I intentionally tucked it in the back of all the barrels so I can't get at it easily.

Question for you, I had 3 extra gallons of wort after I filled the barrels. I used it to top off an established solera. Should I be concerned about ecoli or enterobacter in the short term?

 

[Sourz4life]

No, you'l be fine. Spontaneous has phases it goes through. In the first 24-48 hours is the enterobacteria phase. They thrive in high dissolved O2 areas, but the moment the yeast get to a larger cell count the pH starts to drop, O2 starts diminishing and of course alcohol creation. Most die in a dissolved O2 of less then 2-3 and have a pH tolerance of around 4.5(in general but not all of course). That makes for an environment they can't really live in. There is always the chance you caught something that is much more hardy and will ruin a batch, but that's the chance you take in general with spontaneous.

 

[Dcpcooks]

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I'm really kind of blown away by this level of activity on day three. I wasn't expecting to need more than an airlock for the beginning of fermentation.

 

[Sourz4life]

Yea, it can be pretty random. I've had some take off 12 hours after knocking out of the coolship and a few that took 3 weeks to a month to start showing activity.

 

[Dcpcooks]

This batch seems to have a nice fermentation going. It needed a blow of tube for 48 hours but it's settled in to a nice steady ferment. Smells kindly bready out of the airlock

 

[Dcpcooks]

Update: 5/13/17 was the barrel date. So I’ll be pulling the first sample of this project/beer this weekend.

We moved last summer and I had to relocate the barrel but other than that it’s been untouched for a year.

 

[6midgets]

I'm excited. Like its my own beer.