Dang it mongoose you got me thinking lol. Is the size difference very noticeable? I'm working with a really small room. It appears that my mountain bike might get moved to the carport to accommodate this. I just dont know if I would do much 10 gallon batches . I guess if I ever wanted to it's possible with the 10 .
How does the chilling work in a 10 with only 5 gallons? Does the coils still go far enough into the beer?
The CF5 is 14" wide by 29" tall. The CF10 is 17" wide by 35" tall. Three inches.
Of course, if you're never likely to do 10-gallon batches, it's wasted money. I figured I wouldn't do all that many 10-gallon batches, but wanted the option.
The chiller works fine with 5-gallon batches. The chilling coil extends about 2/3 of the way into the beer when doing 5-gallon batches.
The other price differences are that the heating/cooling option is $15 more for the CF10 than the CF5. If you put leg extensions on it, the bracing shelf is $5 more with the CF10. So....$115 more for the CF10?
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I've been toying a bit with expanding my brewery, trying to get a license and doing it for real. I figured I'd have to buy a lot more equipment, but they have a deal where there's some sort of interest-free financing of these things. If I go that way, I'll take advantage of it.
The reason I bring that up is one can look at the base price of the unit, and it looks very accessible, but there are other things you're probably going to wish you had.
One is the pressure manifold. One good thing about the CF10 is the ability to ferment under pressure; at the end of fermentation, with the unit sealed up with about 5-7 points of gravity to go, it'll self-carbonate about halfway similarly to how bottles carbonate and condition. I do that, and it's good to monitor pressure with the gauge, plus there's the PRV, plus a gas post so you can both pull gas off (if planning to seal it) as well as carbonate it as well as do a pressure transfer. That's $75. I use the gas post as a blowoff port to either run it into a jar so I can monitor fermentation, or to purge a keg w/ all that CO2 that comes off, or to add pressure.
I also bought a carbonation stone but truth be told, I've never used it. It can be used to oxygenate the wort or to carbonate. I use a very long oxygen wand instead, and either self-carbonate or finish in the keg with force carbonation.
I also bought the 2" sight glass for the bottom, which I'm glad I have. I also did the leg extensions and bracing shelf so it's tall enough to gravity feed into kegs--though if you have CO2 you can pressure transfer it. That's $50.
You'll also probably wish you had a couple extra TC clamps and some spare silicone gaskets for the TC connections.
I also bought the CIP cleaning ball but truth be told, you can live without it. That's what's great about the Spike--you can take off the top and easy to clean.
Anyway, enough trying to get you to spend more money.