15 Gallon Conical Fermenter Cooling System

[whis121surfing]

Awesome post guys!!!
It gave me a great idea to use my Keezer with a wood collar to house a 6 gallon bucket filled with water and do a modified version of your whole setup with the fermenter next to it by drilling ports through the wood collar. Then I could even rack straight to a secondary (to lager) or the keg (to drink-my favorite) thats in the keezer without even lifting or moving anything besides the conical which is on on casters anyways. I guess I need to put my construction hat on again.

 

[StainlessBrewing]

Nice job and thanks for the order!

 

[cfrazier77]

Nice job on your build. I am using a brewhemoth so it is very similar with its internal chiller. I have used an aquarium heater in the winter with good results. Here is a helpful tip for cooling though. Instead of adding bags of ice I freeze 2 liter bottles of water. This is much easier and does not cost anything once you have the empty bottles. I add 2 every 24 hours to my cooler and I am good.

 

[modobrew]

Nice job on your build. I am using a brewhemoth so it is very similar with its internal chiller. I have used an aquarium heater in the winter with good results. Here is a helpful tip for cooling though. Instead of adding bags of ice I freeze 2 liter bottles of water. This is much easier and does not cost anything once you have the empty bottles. I add 2 every 24 hours to my cooler and I am good.

Started doing this after a few bags of ice. Works great.

 

[tdawg183]

i would think a 5 gal bucket of water in a dorm fridge would be a great replacement for the cooler and bags of ice.....

in the winter you could throw a space heater in the fridge to heat the water.....

modobrew briefly mentioned that this is our next step already but I just wanted to throw in that the ice bath in the cooler was just a way to get the show on the road. We were sick of getting off flavors after fermentation and being limited to certain yeast strains. We've since aquired a (free) dorm fridge and I'm currently building a little custom bucket to fit into it.

As for the heater, I think our thoughts were to keep as little equipment from being in contact with the liquid as possible for sanitations sake so I think we're going down the ferm heater route.

How much SS coil do you think you really need? I wonder if a "U" extending a foot or so into the fermenting beer would be enough.

A "U" may be enough but I doubt it when it gets really warm out. It will however be a function of what speed pump you have. Meaning if you just had a small "U" loop you'd have to spend a lot more time pumping to cool than you would if you had a fast pump. That may be obvious but with our setup we justified needing a faster pump and we had 50' of coil but also the ambient temperature never got too warm. There's also the surface area factor, ability of your dorm fridge to cool warm water, etc.

Needless to say, my personal opinion is that you don't want your pump working a whole lot if possible. With this setup (dorm fridge, 620gph pump, 50' SS coil) I don't believe the pump will be overworked and I believe that lagering temps are achievable which is our end goal.

Hope that helps!

 

[Hang Glider]

this little Tetra submersible is about $15 and works great! (Petco, WalMart...)

I'd consider pumping warm water, as opposed to setting this in your wort - too much to sanitize, too many little nooks for nasties to hide...

 

[modobrew]

this little Tetra submersible is about $15 and works great! (Petco, WalMart...)

I'd consider pumping warm water, as opposed to setting this in your wort - too much to sanitize, too many little nooks for nasties to hide...

Thanks for this bit of info. We might look into this option as well.

 

[cfrazier77]

this little Tetra submersible is about $15 and works great! (Petco, WalMart...)

I'd consider pumping warm water, as opposed to setting this in your wort - too much to sanitize, too many little nooks for nasties to hide...

I agree, I should have made it more clear, but I pump warm water too.

 

[ghoti]

Do folks think that having 25 feet of 3/8 tubing with a strong pump is better than having 3/8 tubing with a smaller pump?

 

[18DPA]

Do folks think that having 25 feet of 3/8 tubing with a strong pump is better than having 3/8 tubing with a smaller pump?

Hydraulics:

I don't know the formulas for calculating these but this is basic.

The longer the tube the more resistance.
The bigger ID of the hose the less resistance.
Height from your reservoir to the fermenter increases resistance.

All of these should be thought out before buying your pump especially that last one. Every pump has a rating and a chart telling how high it will pump.

Pump size:
If you get one that is too big you should be able go to Lowes or HD and buy a $5 dimmer switch. (Old school one with the white circle nob your weird uncle has at in his 70s style split level house in the den) This will allow you modulate the flow rate with it.

But there is no way to make a smaller pump generate more power or flow rate.

The bigger the pump the lest its going to have to work. which means less cycling and cheaper electric bills.

 

[fpweeks]

But it's thermodynamics more than hydraulics. Does a lower flow rate cool quicker than a higher flow rate. Depends on the length of tubing, temp change of coolant through that length, etc, etc.....

I didn't do that well in thermodynamics.....

 

[18DPA]

Didn't do well in thermodynamics?? Hell I'm a PA that dropped out of High School....That being said your right about it being thermodynamics.

For the heat transfer you would want the diameter of the coil to be as big as possible. For the thermodynamics This will give you the most surface area for heat transfer, and for the hydrolics it will provide the least amount of restriction on the pump. The length of the tubing is another factor affecting restriction on the pump.

The part I get fuzzy on is heat transfer vs the speed of the cooling liquid going through the coil. The other end is something you have to take into account is how fast the return liquid can get cooled. Too fast and you're just cycling warm fluid through the beer.


Most of the problems I've been reading about is guys getting pumps that couldn't push hard enough to get up into the conical or they had a 50' SS smaller diameter coil that gave too much restriction.

 

[tdawg183]

Most of the problems I've been reading about is guys getting pumps that couldn't push hard enough to get up into the conical or they had a 50' SS smaller diameter coil that gave too much restriction.

The reason we are going to a faster pump is almost exclusively a combination of both of these issues. Our 158gph cooled well but it just dribbled water through the line and (as you can see from the pictures) it was elevated. We need the cooling element on the ground thus we needed a pump with more "lift" and there we found the 620gph pump which has a lift almost triple that of the smaller one. From there we can adjust the speed down if need be but I doubt it will be required. With 25ft of SS I bet the 158gph would work better but I'd still opt for the 620gph pump.

 

[18DPA]

...... With 25ft of SS I bet the 158gph would work better but I'd still opt for the 620gph pump.

A couple other threads talk about this. One guy has a set up where the coolant reservoir is in another room. Add that distance plus a 50' coil and pretty soon you have hundreds of feet of line you're trying to push fluid through. That is a lot of friction and back pressure.

 

[fpweeks]

i can do the friction loss calc's.....just dont ask me to do the heat loss calc's

 

[lonepalm]

and folks, tdawg183 would be my brew partner mentioned in original post. He built most of that system for us.

I have one of these built into a table. Do you plan to strictly use this for lagering?

 

[modobrew]

I have one of these built into a table. Do you plan to strictly use this for lagering?

lonepalm, this setup was designed for regulating ale temps during our hot NC summer months. We also plan to experiment with it lagering in the fall when temps aren't as high. We've successfully used this design in one beer so far, a Kolsch that attenuated on point and as of transferring to the secondary, no off flavors were detected. We hope to be serving it soon and will better know how our system worked.

Look for future updates as we plan to use a dorm fridge rather than the cooler in our next setup.

 

[HDIr0n]

Where did you get your conical, and stand? Also what is the total height of it?

Thanks,
-G

 

[18DPA]

Copying your setup. Custom built my stand so it will gravity feed into corny

I'll do up a parts list and send more photos of it working. Just got a dorm fridge off CL and debating if I'll need to run glycol or not.

 

[18DPA]

Oh and I got my comical through spray smarter. It's an ag supply company.

 

[fpweeks]

I see guys putting the qd's through the lid. Why not run through the top or upper side of the conical? Seems like it would be less cumbersome when removing the lid

 

[18DPA]

Cleaning. Less holes in the fermenter = less places for bacteria

 

[StainlessBrewing]

Oh and I got my comical through spray smarter. It's an ag supply company.

Looking good! I think a dorm fridge would work fine.

 

[modobrew]

Copying your setup. Custom built my stand so it will gravity feed into corny

I'll do up a parts list and send more photos of it working. Just got a dorm fridge off CL and debating if I'll need to run glycol or not.

Looks great! Glad we could be of some inspiration.

 

[chutracheese]

Why not try RV antifreeze for sinks and toilets during the winter first?
It's not toxic. Worth a shot. (Kal used it to chill his draft tower through glycol lines.)

 

[18DPA]

Here it is on a test run.

Im trying to cool 5 gallons of water. Usually I'll brew 12 gallon batches but I want to test it at minimum capacity first. The bottom of the thermowell and the coil sit at about 2.5 gallons.

So far no leaks and it runs fine.

Pond Pump in stollen 5 gallon RO water jug. That cord into Ranco.

Ranco temp controller probe goes into brewers hardware's longest unthreaded thermowell (really well made).

Water is 80 degrees right now and fridge isn't cool either I'm going to wait to run the pump until its cooled off.

Also I am planning on a racking port but that is down the road a bit. All my fittings are in a box and I can't remember which are for the upcoming electric brewery.

Questions: What was the consensus on the airlocks on this? Needed not needed? I know you have to seal the lid etc etc. Spotty Dog I think you go without right?

 

[StainlessBrewing]

Do you plan on insulating the conical?

 

[18DPA]

Yes. Don't have enough material right now to do it proper. But soon. Zack this is so much your baby wothout that beautiful coil it wouldn't be here.

 

[bluez28zr2]

Can u list the camlock parts? I have everything but that ready to go. Wasn't sure how to get the stainless steel coil through the top in a clean technique. I like the looks of the camlock.

 

[StainlessBrewing]

Yes. Don't have enough material right now to do it proper. But soon. Zack this is so much your baby wothout that beautiful coil it wouldn't be here.

Great! Let me know when she's ready to ship home.

Are you ok with the Type-C camlocks or would you recommend the Type-D (female cam x female thread) with a hose barb fitting for a larger bore?