Heating & Cooling non-jacketed Conicals

[Beer:30]

I have two SS non-jacketed conicals that I want to heat and possibly cool independent of any chamber. I found the black box (http://brulosophy.com/2014/07/23/th...d-hot/?blogsub=confirming#blog_subscription-2). Anyone have experience using heating blankets and/or a cooling method other than a keezer or fermentation room? I like the step feature of the black box, but I would be willing to manually adjust the temperature with a simpler controller. I will probably try to get the temp probe through the pressure relief valve on top of the conical (may need to drill it larger). Anyone have experience with this type of setup?
Thanks!

 

[sandyeggoxj]

I have a brewhemoth with a dual immersion coil and a homemade glycol chiller. The chiller works great. To keep it warm right now I am using a 45 watt seedling heater mat with a blanket over it. Doesn't work that well.

 

[PosterGuy]

I would look into using a ss immersion chiller coil inside the conical.
There is a recent thread on this subject using glycol with plastic units.

I would plan on drilling for new fittings for your probe and in-out cooling/heating lines.
You'll want to keep the existing PRV in place.

Cooling can be as simple as a pond pump circulating through a cooler foll of ice/water.
Just plug the pump into the black box.

Heating is probably more involved.
I envision circulating through a small electric water heater, but you could quite easily tap your domestic hot water running outflow to a waste line.
Here you would need a high temp pump or a electromechanical valve.

 

[sandyeggoxj]

You could use a controlled temp environment, like a cold room, and then put silicone heaters on the tanks to raise the temperature above the ambient.

Also, for the pressure relief/thermo well setup it is fine to tee off that with the thermo well going down into the wort and then the pressure relief to the side.

 

[Beer:30]

I did more poking around, I think I am going to build something like this setup for temp monitoring: http://morebeer.com/products/temp-controlled-blow-assembly-conical-lid.html

Via the blackbox, I'm thinking that the fermwrap heater may work well for heating. I like the idea of an aquarium pump circulating something like glycol for cooling. I'm just thinking that I may be able to make a system that wraps around the conical, beneath an insulating jacket to eliminate the need for drilling the conical. Need to think more on this. Thanks for the input!

 

[ClaudiusB]

I use a glycol chiller to cool my fermenters, all have internal coils.
Heating is not required at my Texas location and most of my beers are lagers.

Cheers,
ClaudiusB

 

[sandyeggoxj]

I have a stainless immersion coil with 30ºF glycol in it. I am cold crashing 11+ gallons of wort right now and in the last hour I have dropped 20ºF. I could increase the efficiency a bit, but I don't really mind it now.

You could do the coil of tubing soldered to the outside of the conical and then wrap it in a few layers of reflectix insulation. That would work really well as well. Heating would be the only concern. If you used silicone contact heaters with a low watt density you would be in good shape. It would be a nice clean setup.

 

[Beer:30]

Since i have 2 conicals, I really think a chamber makes the most sense. I am looking into using a 5k BTU ac unit, fermwraps and the black box to regulate. Anyone know if a 5k will cool a 40 sf chamber effectively? How much can I expect to lower the temp with that setup?

 

[trimixdiver1]

I use a SS coil and circulate glycol. I have a Neslab chiller I got off ebay.

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