DIY glycol chilled plastic conical fermenters

[jddevinn]

Jddevin thank you for the diagram... is there any chance you have a parts list??? I'm not sure what 2 of the items are.

I didn't get that far along in writing everything out. Which two items do you need to know?

 

[pvhopsmd]

One the 15 gal conical from most places they offer either a female pipe thread 1.5"or a 2" male... correct me if I'm over thinking it.. wouldn't the male threads be more sanitary with having a smooth path out?

 

[w0732400]

I posted this inits own thread and got little response so i thought i would ask here
I am looking to run 3 14 Gallon conicals of the SS Brewtech variety. My question is more in long term efficiency. I live in MN and these will be in the basement it doesnt get significantly warm down there.





My question is if I want to be able to control ale temps, lager, and cold crash before racking. If I run a glycol system with a window ac unit and a pump how much is it going to have to run the pump/ac unit to keep it at cold crash temps.





For efficiency sake...

Am i better to have 3 standup freezers with a conical in each or 1 ac unit and the pump based on cycles and energy use. It is 60* on average in my basement

 

[boat_eggs]

in 90* heat in the summer, my ac kicked on about every 4 hours for 30 min with one 14g fermenter with 10g of beer in it. i tried coldcrashing at 35* and the ac never kicked off in 6 hours midday, but my fermentors dont have an insulating jacket yet either. i halfass cold crash at ~45* until i get around to making jackets.

I personally do not regret my 3 fermentor/ac glycol chiller/glycol manifold/bcs build and think 3 freezers would be more expensive/lower performing/larger footprint, but that is just me

 

[SanPancho]

ISO 7241-B. Usually used for hydraulics, but they more than meet the temp and flow requirements for the glycol.

do the have check valve/self sealing? or just standard connect?

 

[augiedoggy]

I am still using my 4 conical temp control manifold similiar to the ones in this thread only I use the cheaper 24v dc solenoid valves which are only about $3 with shipping and they have been working flawlessly for over 3 years now.

I,m planning on building a larger scale unit with 110 gallon plastic conicals I just purchased for my small brewpub. I intend on trying the discharge hose method wrapped around the outside of the conicals like I do with my stainless conicals for chilling but we shall see how that functions with testing.

I am using Brucontrol software to do this myself as its easy to setup for this as well as write custom temp control profiles. the next release with even support using tilt devices to measure and automatically trigger temp control steps as the gravity reaches the desired point for each step.

 

[SanPancho]

Any reason why aren’t you gonna use the ss coils inside? Much more efficient cooling. The only bummer is the ace roto 110s have the lid offset to side, so running coils thru the lid isnt really an option.

Id think that rubber to plastic would be pretty inefficient heat transfer. Have you tested yet? What were you planning to insulate with?

 

[augiedoggy]

Any reason why aren’t you gonna use the ss coils inside? Much more efficient cooling. The only bummer is the ace roto 110s have the lid offset to side, so running coils thru the lid isnt really an option.

Id think that rubber to plastic would be pretty inefficient heat transfer. Have you tested yet? What were you planning to insulate with?

The coils dont need to be in the center. I have not tested the coil on the outside yet, We ordered our conicals through spraysmarter.com on april 10 and the conicals finally arrived last thursday but are all missing the stands we ordered so we havent done anything with them yet.

I want to cip and the coils inside the tanks are just another pain in the ass to deal with.
I use the discharge hose wrapped around the outside of 3 of my four conicals at home with the 4th being the ss brewtech setup with the coil inside and theres no noticable difference at all in cooling speed or capability between the two. (I realize those are stainless)
I intend on using the bubble faced foil insulation wrap as I do at home. I can get frost on the inside of my stainless conicals when testing them empty with the glycol flowing so I think they might still cool well enough through the plastic but I'll have to try it out.

 

[SanPancho]

As you’re not using coils ill simply say that things work better with the coils centered. How i know is a long story.

CIP is obviously a few more steps, but not really a big deal. One lid with coils, an extra lid with cip ball. Swapping takes all of a minute. Its still an extra step, obviously. But frankly we clean with a power washer in about 2 minutes. CIP is just the sani loop. 10 min total once chems are mixed.

Without knowing the surface areas of hose vs coils on your home setup theres no way of knowing if a real difference exists. Plus smaller volumes cool easier/faster, etc. So id be a bit hesitant to draw that conclusion.

Nonetheless im really curious to hear about the cooling with the hose. Obviously theres no comparing vs internal coils here, but itd be interesting to see how low it gets vs the glycol temps. I guess that might be the best /only comparison available?

Also- any thoughts on how you plan on securing the hose to the cone? Or you gonna just do the body?

 

[augiedoggy]

Normally I just done the body of the tanks with a heat strip wrapped around the bottom right above the cone base.

I do have 100ft of stainless coil and fittings to secure them in a lid but im trying this option first as I drastically prefer it to the coil setup at home. I do not care about cold crash temps so much since we have actual stout brite tanks we bought from Mitten brewing in michigan.

Im fairly sure no ones tried the discharge hose on them. everyone assumed there would not be enough thermal transfer but people told me the same here when I mentioned in with my 12.5 gallon conicals and like I said, I get a layer of frost on the inside walls of my conicals when I tested them empty.. and they are super easy to keep clean compared to the ss brewtech one with the coil in it.

 

[SanPancho]

i have no doubt it will “work” in the sense it will cool the tanks, just curious how cold it will get and what sort of cooling power youll need due to lower efficiency of heat transfer. Or if its even noticeable.

If you’re using brites then its irrelevant. But it worked best for us to crash in ferms as low as possible and then again in brite. We got a standard domed brite, jacketed but not insulated for crazy cheap. It sits in our cooler (38-39) to knock down to 33 or so and carb.

When you get it set up maybe crash a ferm and see how low it goes?

 

[SanPancho]

So I have a source for 304SS hydraulic ISO 7241-b quick disconnects and trying to see who is interested. $30 per set (so would be $60 per coil/tank since you'd need two sets to operate one coil). Just trying to get a headcount on how many sets there is interest for. Only firm commit to buy please. Can only get this pricing if there is enough interest.

Might be interested. Will know by end of week.

 

[suprchunk]

Are they similar to these 316 ones? https://summit-hydraulics.com/produ...steel-quick-disconnect-hydraulic-coupler-set/

I've been looking into these as well, would make standardizing all my chiller stuff a little better.

 

[rkhanso]

Living in Minnesota, and winter just around the corner - I'm wondering how much heating will be necessary for a 15gal conical in my unheated garage. I can expect it to be anywhere from +40F down to maybe 0F or lower occasionally. Will the Flexwatt Heat Tape be enough to keep the conical running at ale/stout fermentation temps? Or, wondering if I'd need to instead use an insulated fermentation chamber in the winter.
I do plan on running a Glycol chiller in the summer though. I'm using CraftbeerPi as the controller.

 

[augiedoggy]

You're going You're going to want some sort of heat control so you can bring the fermentations up for the diecetal rest

 

[augiedoggy]

I actually I actually just completed my fermentation control build using for a 110 gallon plastic conical and I'm adding heat to them with 4000 mm long 400 W silicone heat strips that are wrapped around the outside I have yet to touch the heating function but the cooling coils for the glycol are working very well so far

 

[rkhanso]

I picked up a 15gal full-drain plastic conical (Ace Roto Mold brand) today from Craigslist for $15.
Going to turn it into a Fermenter with heat (needed for the MN winter) and plan on Glycol for the summer.
Hopefully keeping it in the garage year round.
Using CraftbeerPi to control the temps.
Can't wait to get started on this project.

 

[IslandLizard]

I picked up a 15gal full-drain plastic conical (Ace Roto Mold brand) today from Craigslist for $15.

Excellent score!

Going to turn it into a Fermenter with heat (needed for the MN winter) and plan on Glycol for the summer.

Good insulation is key in either scenario.

 

[augiedoggy]

just an update, the 50ft strainless coils work pretty well to control fermentation temps on the large 110g ones if anyone considers them for a nano.. also im using a 300w 60ft long pipe heat wrap wrapped around the outside with a layer of refletex (or whatever its called) for heating and that also works very well... it seems I cant get a good seal around the lid regardless of the silicone though. the small 1/3hp chiller works ok to chill 3bbls... dont expect to cold crash with it however. thankfully we have stainless brite tanks.

 

[rkhanso]

Has anyone seen THIS for homebrewing? Silicone heat pads for mash tun temp control?

I'm wondering if this might also work for the plastic fermenter. I suspect if they're getting mash-tun temps from this stuff, maybe just a little bit of this around the plastic conical will be good for fermenting temps. Or, are these types of heat "tapes" too intense and will melt the plastic? One I saw for heating pipes said not to cross over itself or use on PVC. Maybe they can be controlled with PWM controllers?

You don't have to spend that much money from the actual Keenovo brand, but get cheaper versions from ebay.
HERE, HERE

 

[augiedoggy]

Has anyone seen THIS for homebrewing? Silicone heat pads for mash tun temp control?

I'm wondering if this might also work for the plastic fermenter. I suspect if they're getting mash-tun temps from this stuff, maybe just a little bit of this around the plastic conical will be good for fermenting temps. Or, are these types of heat "tapes" too intense and will melt the plastic? One I saw for heating pipes said not to cross over itself or use on PVC. Maybe they can be controlled with PWM controllers?

You don't have to spend that much money from the actual Keenovo brand, but get cheaper versions from ebay.
HERE, HERE

well I have used the long strip versions of those... thats actually what I use on my 3 stainless homebrew conicals.. they work well the heaters in the pic look like serious overkill to me as a single 24vdc 36" by 1" strip heats my 12gallon conicals fairly quickly.mine are like 70w... those are 1700w which is extreme overshoot and overkill IMO. I guess it you want to pasturize the beer?

I have a keenevo from ebay too 4000mm long 400w one I bought for the 3bbl conicals.. it gets super hot too hot to touch. worried about heating the plastic above 180 which will cause it to leech chemicals into the wort so I replaced it with the lower watt density pipe heater strips.

the pipe heater strips are great... lower watt density..

 

[rkhanso]

I'm not sure I've seen a definite answer to the amount of heat needed for our cold MN winters from 0-40F ambient temps in the garage.
I'm worried that the 11" wide Flexwatt stuff might not be enough heat to handle the cold (obviously, with some sort of insulation around the plastic 15gal conical). It appears that the 11" wide Flexwatt is 20 watts per foot. I also wonder if the pipe tape or silicon heat pads get too hot for the plastic since there are various warnings on the different products.

If I understood the math, maybe the info at this link would be helpful: https://www.mbaa.com/districts/NorthernCalifornia/Documents/2014 Joint Technical Conference/3-3 F Scheer Thermodynamics for Brewers.pdf
Page 33-43 is about fermenting.

Does anyone have a successful install in 0-40 degree ambient temps and can recommend a product or amount of watts needed to keep the yeast happy? I'll be using CraftbeerPi and can use either a SSR or Relay (depending if PWM is needed) to control the heat temps.

 

[jddevinn]

I'm not sure I've seen a definite answer to the amount of heat needed for our cold MN winters from 0-40F ambient temps in the garage.
I'm worried that the 11" wide Flexwatt stuff might not be enough heat to handle the cold (obviously, with some sort of insulation around the plastic 15gal conical). It appears that the 11" wide Flexwatt is 20 watts per foot. I also wonder if the pipe tape or silicon heat pads get too hot for the plastic since there are various warnings on the different products.

If I understood the math, maybe the info at this link would be helpful: https://www.mbaa.com/districts/NorthernCalifornia/Documents/2014 Joint Technical Conference/3-3 F Scheer Thermodynamics for Brewers.pdf
Page 33-43 is about fermenting.

Does anyone have a successful install in 0-40 degree ambient temps and can recommend a product or amount of watts needed to keep the yeast happy? I'll be using CraftbeerPi and can use either a SSR or Relay (depending if PWM is needed) to control the heat temps.

Rkhanso,

You haven't gotten a definite answer because there is not a simple formula that you can use to calculate heat loss. We can calculate things like energy required to heat water between two temperatures because all [most] of the variables are known and their is only minor heat loss. In simple terms to keep the beer at fermentation temperature requires that we input the same amount of energy into the beer as it looses to the environment. Heat loss is going to be dependent on your insulation, shape of fermenter and so on. You could fill the fermenter with warm water and measure how quickly it cools..... but I think that would be overkill.

Flexwatt at 20 watts per 11" x 12" area is 0.15 watts per square inch of contact. A heat pad or pipe tape is going to be magnitudes more concentrated than that (first heat pad I found was ~5watt/in2, tape even more.) You could simply do more than one layer of Flexwatt.

Make sure that you either wrap evenly or toward the bottom of the fermenter, don't want to have the top hot and the bottom cold!!

 

[rkhanso]

I received 3' of the 11" Flexwatt/Fermwrap heat tape for Christmas and am ready to continue with this project.
My fermenter will be in a cold garage - in the 20-40F range in the Winter. I'm thinking about insulation.
That refletix stuff at Menards/Home Depot has an R- value of only about R-3.7. Is there a better insulation type to use?
I've searched for an R- value for the Neoprene used in this thread, but am coming up blank.
I suppose a test-run might be in order....

 

[Tartan1]

^^^ Could you adapt something like this? https://www.homedepot.com/p/Fiberglass-Water-Heater-Insulation-Blanket-SP57-11C/100139225
Ugly yes, not as form fitted as some of the other options but it has a higher R value.

 

[rkhanso]

Thanks for that idea Tartan1 -
I'm also trying to figure the most efficient way to align the heat tape on the conical portion to get the maximum coverage...
I think the 11" flexwatt might not have been the best option to get to cover the conical portion of the conical.
Is it kosher to overlap it if needed?
Diamond pattern on the conical seems the most efficient.

 

[jddevinn]

Overlap is fine. You'll just have twice the heating density where overlapped

 

[rkhanso]

My fermenter is about done. Just a couple more things to finish before I make Sparky's Nut Brown Ale this Saturday. Well, done as far as heating. I'll work on the cooling when it gets warm outside in a few months.

I do BIAB brewing. There may likely be much less trub that I have to drain out of the fermenter. I also have a tendency to use a large fine mesh bag to put the hops in during boil (similar to a BIAB bag), and I'm sure that also has an effect in the amount of trub in the fermenter.

For this first brew, I'll just dump trub and bottle out the bottom dump port.

I'm going to brew this Saturday and don't have a racking/bottling/sample port installed yet. I wanted to measure the trub on this test brew to see how high I should make this port.

Question about the racking port .....
Has anyone else who does BIAB made a fermenter like this? If so, how high up did you put the racking/bottling/sample port?

One more question about bottling....
Since this first time I'm not using a Racking port to take beer out for bottling, I was going to just use the bottom dump port throttled down to 1/2" valve and bottling wand. Am I fooling myself that I'll get clear enough beer using the dump valve for bottling?

If I dump the trub out of the 1-1/2" dump valve after a few days and let the fermenter sit for a total of 2-3 weeks before bottling - should I have more sludge to remove? I'm guessing I'd need to open the dump port again before bottling to dump any additional sediment. I do want clear beer. It's cold here in my garage, so I could let the beer sit after fermenting in anywhere from 25-35F temps to help it clear.

I suppose I could sanitize my BIAB bag and use it as a filter when bottling.

Just trying to have as clear of a beer as possible.

One more thing - I don't have kegging equipment and have to bottle my beer. I got to thinking about adding priming sugar solution to this fermenter and wonder if that'll stir up trub that will end up getting in the beer when stirred in. Should I rack to a bottling bucket first? Or just filter through some fine bag material that I have? Though that might cause oxidation. Maybe I need to use those sugar drops in each bottle?

 

[rkhanso]

FYI - for anyone making one of these in cold climates and need to heat the conical, I may have just experienced the ultimate test for heating the conical.

Overnight here in MN it got down to -30F with windchills of -50F (though windchills won't affect the beer in my garage).

I have about 2.5 feet of the fake 11" wide FlexWatt heat tape from Amazon on my conical, which translates to about 57 watts of heat.

It's been +9F in my garage overnight and the beer has been a steady 66F with fluctuations of just .25F high to low controlled by the CraftbeerPi controller.

The Flexwatt is heating much of the time, and I'm not sure how much lower the temp could go before it can't keep up any longer. But it's able to keep up with the 57 degree difference between set temp and ambient temp. The CraftbeerPi controller has had the heat tape powered about 30 minutes for about 10 minutes of off-time.

I've been posting screen-shots at this thread.

 

[rkhanso]

Is anyone using one of the plastic conical fermenters also bottling? If so, are you racking to a bottling bucket first to add priming sugar to? Or do you mix the priming sugar into the fermenter? I know, one of the reasons for a conical is less sediment and stirring up the fermenter goes against that idea. But, if the trub is dumped before stirring gently.....?
There are a couple threads where people mention doing this - but I think they're using buckets. It's not specified anyway.

Gotta save some $ and get kegging equipment.... I know.