What in the world

[Stand]

I cold crashed my conical last night. I woke up this morning and found a perfectly formed cylinder of frozen beer in front of my conical.

What in the world?

 

[Transamguy77]

Looks like it was dripping and just kept freezing, like an upside down ice cycle.

 

[eric19312]

was your sample port dripping?

 

[Stand]

Sample port isn't dripping and it's not even close to sample port. It's not all that close to any ports at all. I've had drips freeze before and sneak around the seal on the bottom butterfly, but they've never made perfect cylinders. I dropped temp under pressure, so I expect expansion rate differences account for that.

Best I can figure it dripped from bottom butterfly and then defrosted enough to migrate to the front. No idea why it's in a cylinder.

 

[Vale71]

Does the cylinder diameter roughly approximate the ID of either the dump port or the racking port? If the answer is yes then that's the only place it could have formed and then dropped out of.

 

[kevink]

I'd be worried about a leaky butterfly valve. Mine have never leaked a drop. You don't cap your valves while the fermenter sits? I always cap mine after spraying the valve with starsan to keep them clean while they sit. It will also prevent leaks in your case.

 

[Vale71]

My guess is the valve leaked because the fridge ran continuously and the beer in the ports started freezing, causing mechanical stress and deformation. Ice does expand quite a lot. This must have caused a leak and because of the low temperature in the fridge the leaking beer started freezing on the outside as well, until the fridge finally stopped running and the temperature started rising, causing the cylindrical block of ice to start thawing out until it detached and fell with a satisfying "clunk".

Watson, bring me my bag please?

 

[kevink]

Why would freezing beer in the ports push it's way past the valve instead of in the opposite direction, increasing the pressure in the vessel slightly?

 

[kevink]

OP, how much pressure do you put in the fermenter?

 

[Vale71]

I assumed the OP does not like his beer oxidized and must have been availing himself of the capability of a Spike CFXX to be pressurized, which means he will have had significant internal pressure pushing beer past the inner ice stopper and past the (now) slowly leaking valve only to freeze solid on the other side creating an ever-accreting cylinder of frozen beer.

EDIT: Re-reading his posts I see this was indeed the case.

 

[dpeters]

Looks like it was dripping and just kept freezing, like an upside down ice cycle.

 

[Stand]

I spund my beer at the end of fermentation, and it was at 14PSI when I started cold-crashing. It's currently around 10PSI which is about what I usually see for that temperature shift from 68 to 35.

 

[Vale71]

And you just set the target temperature and let the controller do its thing with no ramping, right? Since you clearly have a temp probe inside the fermenter this means the fridge ran continuously until the beer inside the fermenter reached the target temperature which means the air in the fridge must have gotten really cold. That piece of uninsulated elbow tubing leading to the dump port will then possbly turn into an ice machine.
The reason this would make a butterfly valve leak is not because of any differential expansion rate among the valve's parts as they will all cool off at roughly the same rate and they're all made of the same material anyway. If the beer freezes on the inner side of the valve water's significant expansion will exert outward pressure inside the valve both on the disc as well as on the housing. The disc won't budge because it's on a swivel and so you'll have opposing forces of roughly equal strength cancelling each other out but the housing will expand and since the gasket seals by pressing down on the disc's rim it could very well lose its seal and start dripping.

 

[kevink]

I don't think the valve's housing is expanding due to the pressure created by freezing beer on one side of the valve because there is no valve on teh other side of the elbow at the bottom of the fermenter. All pressure created by the freezing beer will just go up into the fermenter. Plus, look at the construction of the valve vs the elbow and the fermenter itself. Every other part is much thinner and weaker than the valve housing and will expand long before the valve housing will.

OP, has the valve ever leaked while the fermenter is pressurized and the temperature in the chamber is above freezing?

 

[Stand]

I use Fermentrack, so I can set a minimum temperature threshold for ambient air. Mine can't go lower than 20 degrees, but I don't know how cold the elbow gets or how the yeast reacts under those circumstances.

I've never seen an icicle cylinder, and I still don't get that part. I'm looking at it again, and the only port that has beer on it is the bottom butterfly. It had to have come from there.

 

[eric19312]

I use Fermentrack, so I can set a minimum temperature threshold for ambient air. Mine can't go lower than 20 degrees, but I don't know how cold the elbow gets or how the yeast reacts under those circumstances.

I've never seen an icicle cylinder, and I still don't get that part, but now that I'm looking at it the only port that has beer on it is the bottom butterfly. It had to have come from there.

I do similar with my Auber DT500 controller - lower limit 20F. Are you circulating the air in the freezer? I might back off on my lower limit while you sort this out. Don't like idea of ice damaging the lower plumbing,

 

[Vale71]

I don't think the valve's housing is expanding due to the pressure created by freezing beer on one side of the valve because there is no valve on teh other side of the elbow at the bottom of the fermenter. All pressure created by the freezing beer will just go up into the fermenter.

The inner ice cylinder will act as a stopper because of expansion. You don't need another stopper to hold a stopper in place.

I thought I saw traces of beer on the bottom valve but from the picture it was not clear whether this was actually the case. The bottom valve is the most suitable candidate because it has no slope and beer that is already at its freezing point will tend to pool there and accrete until it will first form a disk and then a cylinder that will keep being pushed out by the leaking beer thus becoming ever longer.

 

[Stand]

I do similar with my Auber DT500 controller - lower limit 20C. Are you circulating the air in the freezer? I might back off on my lower limit while you sort this out. Don't like idea of ice damaging the lower plumbing,

I do have a fan at the top that is always on, and the freezer itself is frost-free, so it has a monster fan that blows cold air from the bottom to top when it's running.

I'll increase the lower limits, and see if that fixes the problem next time.

 

[eric19312]

I do have a fan at the top that is always on, and the freezer itself is frost-free, so it has a monster fan that blows cold air from the bottom to top when it's running.

I'll increase the lower limits, and see if that fixes the problem next time.

Hey a little off topic but I have same or similar freezer. Can you talk about how you got your gas lines in there? Did you drill a hole?

 

[Stand]

I wish I had taken a picture when it was pulled apart. This is a picture I took mid-way through my installation.

The hump at the back is just sheet-metal. If you pull out the seal on the right and left sides there are like 9 screws, and the whole panel comes off.

Behind that on the right side there is a hole in the sheet-metal that allows the wiring to come into the chamber, and it's filled with foam. I drilled from the inside-out, so there is no way to make a mistake and puncture the cooling lines. Then I put holes in the sheet-metal cover I removed and installed aviation connectors for the fan power, two temp probes, and the gas line.

Those frost-free freezers are fantastic for our applications. I love mine.

 

[eric19312]

I wish I had taken a picture when it was pulled apart. This is a picture I took mid-way through my installation.

The hump at the back is just sheet-metal. If you pull out the seal on the right and left sides there are like 9 screws, and the whole panel comes off.

Behind that on the right side there is a hole in the sheet-metal that allows the wiring to come into the chamber, and it's filled with foam. I drilled from the inside-out, so there is no way to make a mistake and puncture the cooling lines. Then I put holes in the sheet-metal cover I removed and installed aviation connectors for the fan power, two temp probes, and the gas line.

Those frost-free freezers are fantastic for our applications. I love mine.
View attachment 679382View attachment 679383

Fantastic thanks!

 

[Stand]

Watch that panel, it's sharp and the dial on the thermostat is attached. The face-plate pops off and it unsnaps.