I am considering stainless steel conicals for common homebrewing sizes, say in the 5-20 gal range; some use immersion cooling coils (like Ss Brewtech and Spike Brewing) and some are jacketed (like Glacier, Stout, and Brewers Hardware).
At these sizes, what are the differences? Besides price (jacketed is clearly much more expensive) and cleaning (I guess the coil needs some attention), I am curious about cooling performances.
Is temperature stratification a thing at the homebrewing scale? If so, do jacketed conicals solve the issue? Unfortunately, I could not find any tests about this online.
Is there some other difference in how the cooling works with the two systems?
Are glycol jackets more relevant at, for instance, 20 gal rather than 7 gal?
I read some (admittedly few) conical owners here and there complaining about (sometimes considerable) temperature stratification among different zones with immersion coils, especially when crash cooling. I don't know enough of the physics and engineering behind it to be sure whether one approach is superior to the other. I don't know whether jacketed conicals are usually bigger in size because that kind of system is useless at the homebrewing scale, or just because they would be too expensive for our market. Possibly both.
At these sizes, what are the differences? Besides price (jacketed is clearly much more expensive) and cleaning (I guess the coil needs some attention), I am curious about cooling performances.
Is temperature stratification a thing at the homebrewing scale? If so, do jacketed conicals solve the issue? Unfortunately, I could not find any tests about this online.
Is there some other difference in how the cooling works with the two systems?
Are glycol jackets more relevant at, for instance, 20 gal rather than 7 gal?
I read some (admittedly few) conical owners here and there complaining about (sometimes considerable) temperature stratification among different zones with immersion coils, especially when crash cooling. I don't know enough of the physics and engineering behind it to be sure whether one approach is superior to the other. I don't know whether jacketed conicals are usually bigger in size because that kind of system is useless at the homebrewing scale, or just because they would be too expensive for our market. Possibly both.