Chronicles, Bright Tanks, Unitanks OH MY!!!!

[Laminarman]

I had made the decision to get an SS Brewtech Chronicle BME but have not done any brewing in almost a year. Winter's here, getting back into it, and now I see these Unitanks and Bright Tanks are clouding my decision making. Doing extract/steeping grains stove-top now, the occasional all grain and I can't take the carboys and need to simplify. I also need better temperature control so liked the Chronicle for that reason. Broke my second carboy yesterday and thank God it only had Star San in it but I had wort boiling, what a pain in the butt. I can't get the answers I'm after by searching threads and get some conflicting information. I usually keg my beer (75%) and bottle (25%) but am considering canning. If I have a unitank, do you serve directly from this? Or do you serve directly from a bright tank? Or does a bright tank just settle beer to be bottled or transferred?? On the SS website it says "Bright tanks have some advantages over Unitanks.." but they don't say what they are! I believe that individual components do individual things best (which is why I have separate audio components and use the proper wrench instead of an adjustable wrench and prime lenses instead of zooms in most cases...). In that vein, WILL A UNITANK FUNCTION AS WELL AS A CONICAL FERMENTER LIKE THE CHRONICLE BME? Who really needs a bright tank? And what in the heck is the difference in carbonating with a carb stone and CO2 vs carbing in a keg under pressure in the fridge? I'm sorry to be such an idiot with this question but there seems to be some overlap I can't sort out here. It doesn't show, but I am quite intelligent....at times : )

 

[Rodent]

Brite tank commentary from SSBT: https://ssbrewtech.zendesk.com/hc/e...63-Why-would-a-home-brewer-want-a-Brite-Tank-

Why would a home brewer want a Brite Tank?
A Brite Tanks [sic] Functionality.

1. Cuts carbonation time down significantly with a carb stone, so users can fully carb in under 24 hours. In comparison, the "low and slow" method might take a Home Brewer 5-7 days to fully carbonate in a corny keg. Plus the brewers that try to burst carb at much higher pressures risk carb bite, or a carbonic acid flavor, which is simply over carbonated beer.

2. Allows for proper burst carbing and head pressure monitoring. Commercial breweries do the same thing, they may set input pressure to their carb stones at 30 PSI, then monitor the head pressure until the desired carb limit is reached, typically 12-13 PSI. Then turn down the CO2 to a reasonable serve pressures.

3. Allows for bulk conditioning/aging. This is seriously underrated, if a 10 gallon home brewer can store and serve their beer all in one vessel, it will age differently, plus you only have one vessel to clean and turn when it’s time to refill.

4. Has a larger center drain instead of a dip tube, so yeast is not drawn into the serving line. Just like a commercial brite tank, the large center drain allows for low-velocity pickup, as opposed to a small dip tube in a corny keg, which is a high-velocity pickup. The high velocity of the corny dip tube results in more yeast and sentiment drawn into the draught line.

5. Has a larger bottom surface area for yeast to settle onto. For the volume of beer, corny kegs have a relatively small bottom surface area compared to the Brite Tank. This allows yeast to settle and gather throughout the lower surface area.

6. Can be used as a Firkin/cask ale device. Most home brewers go to a lot of expense for cask ales and firkin kegs, our Brite Tank allows a home brewer to hook up a beer engine, disassemble the PRV seal and use the small opening as the spile.

7. Integrated LCD/Thermowell. For the homebrewer that closely wants to monitor both serve or lager temp, alongside calculating exactly how many volumes of CO2 is going into their beer, a thermowell and thermometer are key. Kegs don't have this functionality.

8. Easier to clean/CIP. CIP has proven to one of the more popular features and purchase decision drivers for our BME Chronical line. We will be introducing a reducer so the end user can utilize their existing equipment investments in CIP on multiple vessels. Plus, cleaning kegs is awful, it’s much easier to throw in some caustic or sanitizers and let the pump and spray ball work their magic.

9. Integrated legs with option for casters. We have come across many homebrewers that are not as young as they used to be and kegs may occasionally need to be lifted. By enabling the use of casters, it makes material handling throughout a home brewery that much easier, just roll it around.

10. Ability to serve and function externally with the use of glycol chiller. Kegs can’t function outside of a kegerator or some other sort of refrigeration device. Equip our optional BME coil and jacket upgrade and the brite tank can be rolled outside and served directly out of without the need for a refrigerator.

11. Ability to transfer beer from your fermenter from the bottom up. Many home brewers are obsessive about oxidation, as well they should be! With kegs, you either have to fill from the dip tube, which is a painfully long process and fraught with other issues, or you risk oxidation. With a Brite Tank, all you need to do is purge the vessel, then fill from the bottom with 1/2" tubing. Transfers take just a few minutes.

 

[Laminarman]

Thank you I guess I missed that . But the question remains is the Unitank able to do all of that as well and as good?? What might it not do as good?

 

[Rodent]

https://ssbrewtech.zendesk.com/hc/e...Unitank-over-a-BME-Chronical-or-a-Brite-Tank-

 

[Laminarman]

So from what I'm reading, unless I'm missing something, there is NO reason to have a Brite Tank, or the Chronicle, if one has a UniTank. To me, and I could be wrong, the real market for the Brite Tank is for someone who already has a conical fermentor?

 

[Rodent]

that's one way to look at it, yep

IMO the big downside to a Uni as an end-end piece that is also used for aging is that your fermentation unit is tied up until the aging is completed ... which then opens the thinking process into less expensive alternatives that perform the same purpose equally as well.

for me, I'm opting to age in corny kegs (I can buy a LOT of corny kegs for the price of a Uni or Brite-Tank) so long as I can maintain an environment within the temp range I want to age them at

 

[Laminarman]

Rodent, thank you for the help. I never thought about having it tied up. That being said, I am mostly IPA's, bitters, wheat beers and don't age too awful long so I'd have the thing tied up several weeks and then probably move it to a keg or bottles. Are you talking long, extended aging? But that is something I haven't thought about and do appreciate that perspective. Darnit.

 

[Rodent]

for the IPAs I brew, they're pretty much ready to go within a few days to a week from when I keg/carb them

I'll say that most all of the Imperial Stouts I've done are drinkable within a month or so, but really become something special somewhere in the 4-12 month window depending.

 

[RM-MN]

Put down the credit card before you hurt yourself. When a large brewery uses it conical to ferment hundreds of gallons of beer in a batch there is a large amount of yeast collected in the bottom of the conical. Being a large amount and under the pressure of that much beer the yeast will heat up, killing some, which leads to autolysis (think bad off flavor) plus they need the fermenter for the next batch right away to meet schedules. They move the beer off into a brite tank to let the suspended yeast settle out and start the beer toward maturity. If you aren't brewing hundreds of gallons at a time you don't really need a brite tank.

Buy a few bucket fermenters so you can have several batches fermenting/clearing/maturing at once. Leave each beer in its fermenter until it has had a chance to clear and start maturing. You'll get the same or better results with less money invested and can have a bigger variety of beer to drink.

 

[Laminarman]

Put down the credit card before you hurt yourself...

I pay cash for everything : ) Don't even have a credit card. Besides I don't have the space for multiple fermentors let alone all the hobbies I support now. But that is a sound idea.

 

[4of7]

50 liter kegmenter....

 

[mongoose33]

I have a CF10 from Spike. The only thing in the laundry list of positives that SSbt notes above that I think is weird is serving from it. Not sure how that would work for a long period of time.

I have pretty fast fermentations, so a typical cycle is brew on Saturday and keg the following Sunday. If the beer needs to condition it does that in the keg. I don't brew beers that require long aging, so maybe that's different.

If I don't need to clear the CF10 for another batch, I'll let the beer sit in there for another week or two.

The biggest reason I bought one was to control oxygen post-fermentation. If there's any downside to the Spike offering, it's that it's rated for only 15psi. I'd like to spund, i.e. let the fermentation finish in a closed fermenter so it self carbonates like conditioning in a bottle. My PRV on the Spike only allows about 13 psi which sounds like it'd be fine, but that's at temps in the 60s. When I crash it down to 40 or 38, the effective pressurization is maybe 7psi (cold beer absorbs CO2 better than warm beer), so I still need to finish carbonating with CO2 from a tank--which is not pure CO2.

This is one place the SSbt does better. I'd probably need to spund at 25psi at 65 degrees, which the SSbt offering would allow.

 

[SanPancho]

get a uni, run your blow off hose to your kegs, put the spund on the kegs. Pure co2 in kegs, at your set pressure, ready for receiving beer. Drink it or age it. Up to you. No tying up the uni if you want to brew again.

 

[Vale71]

One downside of serving directly from a Unitank is that you still need to keg or bottle some of the beer. In a conical there is a lot of beer in the conical portion and unfortunately it cannot be kept cooled at serving temp as both the chilling coil and the temp probe sit in the cilindrical portion of the tank. The only way around this limitation is to put the tank inside a fridge, but then you lose the advantages of external cooling.
In a 14 gal Unitank, which I own, there is about 5 gallons left when cooling becomes ineffective, so I just transfer that under pressure to a 5 gal keg and keep serving from that, thus also freeing the unitank for the next batch.
A Brite Tank should allow you to serve the whole batch before cooling becomes ineffective, as the Brite Tank is designed exactly for that purpose and is not a conical.

 

[Vale71]

Put down the credit card before you hurt yourself. When a large brewery uses it conical to ferment hundreds of gallons of beer in a batch there is a large amount of yeast collected in the bottom of the conical. Being a large amount and under the pressure of that much beer the yeast will heat up, killing some, which leads to autolysis (think bad off flavor) plus they need the fermenter for the next batch right away to meet schedules. They move the beer off into a brite tank to let the suspended yeast settle out and start the beer toward maturity. If you aren't brewing hundreds of gallons at a time you don't really need a brite tank.

FYI you can dump yeast from a conical before it starts releasing off flavors. That's actually the whole point of having a conical..

 

[RM-MN]

FYI you can dump yeast from a conical before it starts releasing off flavors. That's actually the whole point of having a conical..

With the typical batch size for home brewing you can leave the beer in the fermenter on the yeast for several months without the yeast releasing off flavors. Why would you need a conical unless you are harvesting the yeast?

 

[mongoose33]

One downside of serving directly from a Unitank is that you still need to keg or bottle some of the beer. In a conical there is a lot of beer in the conical portion and unfortunately it cannot be kept cooled at serving temp as both the chilling coil and the temp probe sit in the cilindrical portion of the tank. The only way around this limitation is to put the tank inside a fridge, but then you lose the advantages of external cooling.
In a 14 gal Unitank, which I own, there is about 5 gallons left when cooling becomes ineffective, so I just transfer that under pressure to a 5 gal keg and keep serving from that, thus also freeing the unitank for the next batch.
A Brite Tank should allow you to serve the whole batch before cooling becomes ineffective, as the Brite Tank is designed exactly for that purpose and is not a conical.

Do you have any pics showing how you do this? It's not an option for me because I can't get the carbonation up to acceptable levels. Wish I could....

 

[Vale71]

Do you have any pics showing how you do this? It's not an option for me because I can't get the carbonation up to acceptable levels. Wish I could....

Which part exactly do you mean?

 

[mongoose33]

Which part exactly do you mean?

I just wanted to see how you're serving out of the brite tank, what you're using, how it's set up, and so on. I could serve from mine--I can attach a liquid-out QD post to the racking valve and use a picnic tap....if I were so inclined. Can't do it and get what I want, because I can't carbonate fully. That's actually how I pressure transfer to kegs, using the OUT post on the racking valve and a jumper to the keg.

You're doing something I don't do, so I thought I might learn something or get an idea from how you're doing it.

 

[Vale71]

I too have a TC to ball lock post adapter on my racking arm. This allows me to do both pressure transfers as well as serve directly using this faucet I got from Germany:

https://www.zapfanlagendoktor.de/schankhahn-fuer-nc-container-bierfass-behaelter-200271.html

I don't have a problem with spunding as my SSB Unitank goes up to 1.2 bar and I usually serve at 1.0 bar at 7.0°C serving temp.

 

[Laminarman]

A lot of useful information and can't thank you folks enough! Some of it confuses me, sometimes I feel like I'm swimming in hoses and adapters and there are as many approaches to this as there are trees in the forest. My LHB shop is great to work with, he's very responsive, fairly priced, well stocked, but he is very old school and when I asked him this question about the Brite Tank and Uni (which he can get for me) he said "Why make it complicated, carboys let you see the beer, that's what I use and my beer is great." In the end, I guess all that matters is the beer but I need to stop breaking carboys and simplify. The Uni makes a lot of sense.

 

[4of7]

keg's fermentation..works with 5corny

 

[4of7]

I had made the decision to get an SS Brewtech Chronicle BME but have not done any brewing in almost a year. Winter's here, getting back into it, and now I see these Unitanks and Bright Tanks are clouding my decision making. Doing extract/steeping grains stove-top now, the occasional all grain and I can't take the carboys and need to simplify. I also need better temperature control so liked the Chronicle for that reason. Broke my second carboy yesterday and thank God it only had Star San in it but I had wort boiling, what a pain in the butt. I can't get the answers I'm after by searching threads and get some conflicting information. I usually keg my beer (75%) and bottle (25%) but am considering canning. If I have a unitank, do you serve directly from this? Or do you serve directly from a bright tank? Or does a bright tank just settle beer to be bottled or transferred?? On the SS website it says "Bright tanks have some advantages over Unitanks.." but they don't say what they are! I believe that individual components do individual things best (which is why I have separate audio components and use the proper wrench instead of an adjustable wrench and prime lenses instead of zooms in most cases...). In that vein, WILL A UNITANK FUNCTION AS WELL AS A CONICAL FERMENTER LIKE THE CHRONICLE BME? Who really needs a bright tank? And what in the heck is the difference in carbonating with a carb stone and CO2 vs carbing in a keg under pressure in the fridge? I'm sorry to be such an idiot with this question but there seems to be some overlap I can't sort out here. It doesn't show, but I am quite intelligent....at times : )

I was where you. Are .. there is alot of info . In the meantime just go with what you want and what your budget allows.Unless you want to upgrade,then keep on reading. It took me six months to figure out that I could just use my kegs .. and the how. I settled on the kegmenter. Because 4 tc top with ball locks and prv... downside is that it is heavy when full to move around..

 

[4of7]

pressure transfer to corny

 

[SanPancho]

hows about you just buy a fermentasuarus? get the pressure kit. save yourself a ton of dough.

play with it for a while and then upgrade if you really want to later. there'll be another black friday sale in just under 12 months from now.

 

[speavler]

View media item 69856I have a couple of the chronical BME's. I also considered a unitank and sometimes try to talk myself into a brite tank, but why? put that money into a glycol chiller for the chronical.

 

[4of7]

View media item 69856I have a couple of the chronical BME's. I also considered a unitank and sometimes try to talk myself into a brite tank, but why? put that money into a glycol chiller for the chronical.

Beer troll asking can you explain what's in the pictures please like I'm a five-year-old

 

[speavler]

Beer troll asking can you explain what's in the pictures please like I'm a five-year-old

haha, what part? i really just meant to show the chronical BME's. i added 3 inch valves on the lids to be able to seal off the fermenter for cold crashing, swapping blowoff cane for the gas post, dry hopping, etc. this was taken during a closed transfer to a keg. beer goes into keg and pushes the CO2 from the keg into the fermenter. I cannot completely fill the keg this way without more gravity. I use my CO2 to push the last gallon or so.

 

[4of7]

Beer troll asking is this pressure transfer..? What is the white thing on the liquid side in?Explain how you are pushing with the gas in this pic.? Asking because my pic is also a transfer...with the recieving corny keg has spunding...just asking to learn different approach...

 

[Blazinlow86]

I'd look into the spike unitanks over the ssbt conical. At least for me in Canada it was basically the same price for the cf15 as the bme conical. Plus with the spike you aren't forced to buy a cooling coil that you then need a glycol setup to cool with and if your process only allows for glycol the coil is easily removed from the top. Imho a non pressurable conical is a waste as it doesn't really have any advantage over a plastic bucket. The unitank has plenty of advantages on the other hand. there's no comparison in my mind. Cheers

 

[speavler]

Beer troll asking is this pressure transfer..? What is the white thing on the liquid side in?Explain how you are pushing with the gas in this pic.? Asking because my pic is also a transfer...with the recieving corny keg has spunding...just asking to learn different approach...

the CO2 in the keg is evacuated back into the fermenter. the white thing is a filter housing for a screen filter which i have used to help breakup or catch any hop particles before they clog up the quick disconnect.

 

[brewman !]

Imho a non pressurable conical is a waste as it doesn't really have any advantage over a plastic bucket.

^^^ This.

About the only benefit you get with a non pressurable conical is the yeast can be dropped out the bottom.

I'm going with keg based uni tanks.

 

[edwarski]

I had made the decision to get an SS Brewtech Chronicle BME but have not done any brewing in almost a year. Winter's here, getting back into it, and now I see these Unitanks and Bright Tanks are clouding my decision making. Doing extract/steeping grains stove-top now, the occasional all grain and I can't take the carboys and need to simplify. I also need better temperature control so liked the Chronicle for that reason. Broke my second carboy yesterday and thank God it only had Star San in it but I had wort boiling, what a pain in the butt. I can't get the answers I'm after by searching threads and get some conflicting information. I usually keg my beer (75%) and bottle (25%) but am considering canning. If I have a unitank, do you serve directly from this? Or do you serve directly from a bright tank? Or does a bright tank just settle beer to be bottled or transferred?? On the SS website it says "Bright tanks have some advantages over Unitanks.." but they don't say what they are! I believe that individual components do individual things best (which is why I have separate audio components and use the proper wrench instead of an adjustable wrench and prime lenses instead of zooms in most cases...). In that vein, WILL A UNITANK FUNCTION AS WELL AS A CONICAL FERMENTER LIKE THE CHRONICLE BME? Who really needs a bright tank? And what in the heck is the difference in carbonating with a carb stone and CO2 vs carbing in a keg under pressure in the fridge? I'm sorry to be such an idiot with this question but there seems to be some overlap I can't sort out here. It doesn't show, but I am quite intelligent....at times : )

cheaper temp control for ferm = chest freezer and temp controller. for extract/steeping use buckets or put carboys in milk crates or get nuts and get yourself a conical fermentor. bright tank on a 5 gallon level is overkill. id buy a conical fermentor and rack beer off yeast into corny keg before buying a homebrew bright or uni.

 

[brewman !]

cheaper temp control for ferm = chest freezer and temp controller. for extract/steeping use buckets or put carboys in milk crates or get nuts and get yourself a conical fermentor. bright tank on a 5 gallon level is overkill. id buy a conical fermentor and rack beer off yeast into corny keg before buying a homebrew bright or uni.

I took a hard look at fermentors a couple years back and did nothing. After reading this thread and others, I took a hard look again and have decided that, for me, unitanks are much preferable to conical fermentors.

I am thus in the process of converting several 1/4 barrel Sanke kegs into fermentors. I'm doing this by turning them upside down, so the factory fill TC is on the bottom and then welding (brazing, actually) a 4" tri clamp ferrule on the "top".

I don't intend to use the bottom port to drain off trub or yeast. My wort goes into the fermentor very clean. The bottom port will mainly be used as a CIP drain, though I might get small yeast samples from a fermentor once in a while. The top port will receive a number of different caps, depending on what stage the beer is at.

If I don't like the kegmentors as unis, I'll rack to corny kegs for settling and serving.

I'll probably start a thread on converting Sanke kegs to unitanks at some point.

 

[Blazinlow86]

cheaper temp control for ferm = chest freezer and temp controller. for extract/steeping use buckets or put carboys in milk crates or get nuts and get yourself a conical fermentor. bright tank on a 5 gallon level is overkill. id buy a conical fermentor and rack beer off yeast into corny keg before buying a homebrew bright or uni.

I look at it differently. I feel that spending 500+ dollars on a conical to be able to dump yeast and then still have to transfer to kegs to finish your beer is alot more overkill then spending the little bit more to get a unitank that allows finished beer into the kegs. The conical only has one advantage over a bucket. The unitank has several. No brainer imho. Cheers