500l fermenter

[u02scn]

Hi

I'm building a500l fermenter. Has anyone any experience of this size and know whether I would need to heat or cool it? I had to heat my 50l fermenter to get a complete fermentation and I know a larger fermenter would need cooled, but this seems a bit in the middle.

Ambient temperatures will range from 5 to 14 degc in the room with the fermenter.

Any help appreciated.

Steve

 

[bja]

Hard to say. There are a lot of variables to consider. That, and with a temperature range of 41f to 57f, it may need heated at 41 and cooled at 57.

 

[davou]

One way I've seen people chill a larger fermenter is to use an immersion chiller or herms coil, connected to an aquarium pump, with water sourced and returned inside of a keezer.

You plug the pump to a temperature controller and it starts pulling the freezer water through the fermenter until your back in range, dumping it back into the freezer after its passed through the coil to dump its thermal energy back out of the compressor of the freezer

If you need ALOT of thermal mass pulled, you could always use a freezer below freezing and a solution of Ethylene glycol rather than just cool water.

 

[RedlegEd]

Hi

I'm building a500l fermenter. Has anyone any experience of this size and know whether I would need to heat or cool it? I had to heat my 50l fermenter to get a complete fermentation and I know a larger fermenter would need cooled, but this seems a bit in the middle.

Ambient temperatures will range from 5 to 14 degc in the room with the fermenter.

Any help appreciated.

Steve

Steve,
That's over 5 barrels (132 gallons US,) which is a commercial operation. I think you'd do better looking on a commercial site like probrewer.com for information / guidance / advice on a system that big. I think at the least, you'd be looking at a glycol jacket or some other really efficient way to manage the ferm temp on that much beer. Good luck! Ed

 

[u02scn]

Hi,

It looks like i'll definitely need to chill on the first few days or the fermentation will get a bit hot and create off flavors. I decided to buy some stainless steel cooling plates, pretty large at about 3ft x 1ft, these hang off the lid in the fermenter. I then got a beer cooler, cornelius maxi type. Then got a temperature controller and plug this into a pump which circulates water through the chiller and then the cooling plates as required. Hoping this works well. If i need to add heat i'm thinking add some trace heating wire around the outside of the stainless fermentation tanks. This would also plug into the temperature controller as it has a plug for heating and cooling. The whole tank is insulated with 50mm of foam insulation and a layer of foil backed bubble insulation so this should the temperature controller do its thing. Starting to look pretty good. Hoping to brew on it in the next few weeks.

 

[BBBF]

I'd love to see some pics of the insulation and cooling plates.

 

[u02scn]

Hi,

Pictures attached. One shows the outside of the fermenter, foil back insulation on top of the 50mm of foam. The other shows the cooling plates inside the tank. These came from polsinelli in italy. Good quality. Would be happy to recommend them.

Steve

 

[BBBF]

Nice! I have two 620L wine fermenters. One day I'll need to get something like that.

 

[u02scn]

Will let you know how I get on. Haven't brewed on it yet. Just fitted the circulation pump and cooling tubes today. Looking good. Managed to cool an empty tank to target temp in a test run. Just need to add a few more air bleed points as had a few problems with air locks. Once that's sorted I'll insulate the cooling Lines to keep the heat out and stop the condensation. Should be good to go after that.