Any innovations in fermentation equipment?

[user 299451]

Us home brewers are regularly seeing new automated kettle systems, and I certainly enjoy mine. Fermentation equipment doesn't seem to be enjoying as much attention from manufacturers. I've heard plenty of brewers say they should have invested more in the fermentation side, and these comments always seem to be after they've made improvements and now see the benefits. I'd like to have an automated temperature-controlled fermentation system, but the cost is way more than I can tolerate. I currently have four 5-gallon batches bubbling away in plastic buckets so a single 7-gal fermenter would not be adequate capacity unless I could keep it busy 365 days/year.

 

[McMullan]

Get a fridge and a temperature controller, e.g., an Inkbird? No need for it to be expensive at all. Or are you thinking more about a conical with a glycol chiller? The main effect it has on beer is it makes it a lot more expensive, but the beer tastes just the same. I think home-brew FVs have evolved quite a lot. Having something pressure rated up to a bar or two is pretty convenient, imo. But I'm not sure how fermentation gets automated, it's a biological process rather than a chore. Keeping yeast behaviour where it meets our expectations is the best we can do on the fermentation side.

 

[bracconiere]

well not really what i think you're looking for, but i did just upgrade from HDPE to one of these?

so far i like them pretty well, can pressure ferment at 5psi in them. easy to clean. but really just a glorified bucket that's shiny....

https://www.ebay.com/itm/184351838796?hash=item2aec39d24c:g:uGsAAOSwKL1fABqv
edit: i think they make them in 100L also...

 

[CascadesBrewer]

Fermentation equipment doesn't seem to be enjoying as much attention from manufacturers.

I am not sure I would say that. In my view there has been a massive expansion in the number fermenters and the temperature control solutions available over the past decade. It was not long ago that even stainless steel fermenters were unheard of at the homebrew level, but now I have several friends with multiple stainless fermenters of various types (some conicals) with glycol chilling systems. I saw a prototype of a homebrew sized jacketed fermenter at a MoreBeer booth.

While I am pretty happy with my PET Fermonsters and a chest freezer solution, Kegland has a few interesting PET fermenter options with capabilities such as pressure fermentation or chilling coils. I know at least Kegland and Grainfather have stainless fermenters with heating capabilities. There are several solutions based on kegs of various sizes.

Yeah, many of these solutions are not cheap (but the automated brewing systems are not cheap either).

When needed, I am able to increase my capacity to address the bottleneck of my chest freezer by either brewing batches with Kveik, Saison, or Belgians yeasts that just need a cheap heating solution, and by moving fermenters out of my chamber once fermentation slows.

 

[user 299451]

My initial post was a little too vague. My goal is to have a more precise temperature control during the entire process, regardless of the beer style. That probably means separate temperature control per vessel. When I said "automation", that's what I meant. I want a way to dial in a target temperature or temperature schedule. I don't care what the vessels are; plastic, glass, steel. "Pretty" isn't a goal.

I currently have a keezer that could be home to a keg used solely as a cooling source for fermentation. I could route cooling lines through the keezer collar out to the fermenter(s). I don't know enough about heat transfer to know how well that would work. I hate to hack up my keezer collar, or buy another freezer/refrigerator, just to find out it didn't work well. I'd forever wonder if the problem was my implementation or just a poor choice of technology. I guess I'm looking for a manufactured solution, not a home-built one.

I certainly appreciate everyone's feedback and ideas.

 

[Dr_Jeff]

Fermentrack does a good job of automating fermentation.

 

[Whisky River]

I haven’t heard of a commercial solution with individual automated temp control but maybe you could build something. Do you have a budget in mind? You could get a commercial glycol chiller and attach it to separate cooling coils in each fermenter but I don’t know of one that has separate controllable “channels”. You might be able to manually control temps with inline ball valves at each vessel.

I use the Brewjacket Pro immersion chiller which lets you dial in the temp for an individual fermenter to tenths of a degree. You could put one of those on each fermenter and have independent control but there are some limitations in terms of how cold they can get. Plus $$$

 

[Wayne1]

There are multiple ways to go about this idea. Kegland offers a glycol chiller with four separate controllers and pumps IceMaster G40 . This could be used with any number of fermenters with cooling coils internally.

Anvil offers cooling systems for both their SS fermenters and the KegKing PET fermenters Anvil Cooling Systems

MoreBeer also offers many glycol chillers and cooling systems for their fermenters MoreBeer Glycol Chillers and Fermentation Control

 

[Bassman2003]

I guess I would ask is this for beer improvement or enjoyment? I do not think there is too much to be gained vs the expense when it comes to cold side fermentation temps. You would gain more by the ability to do pressure ferments, zero oxygen practices, yeast/trub separation and harvesting than precision temperature control imho. I am envisioning jacketed glycol which is quite expensive.

 

[mashpaddled]

Specifically with the cooling side of temperature control, there's not that many affordable options to build individual vessel control outside of individual fridges for each vessel. You can find conicals with glycol chillers but they are not cheap at all. There are slip on glycol systems for a lot of vessels which are cheaper but don't fit every vessel out there. Any cooling system requires refrigeration which sets a floor for cost and creates technological limitation. It's not as easy as coming up with a more convenient vessel shape or adding different fixtures to an existing design.

You said you didn't want to build out but it wouldn't be insanely difficult to create a small glycol system running out of your keezer (if it is near your brewing area) with a container of glycol hooked to a pump and an inkbird controlling cold glycol hitting your fermenter. You would need some kind of insulation around your fermenter to maintain temperature but it wouldn't be that hard to build or require that much construction on your part. It absolutely would require close proximity between fermentation and serving space.