user 272106
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I jam a small piece of balled up aluminum foil into mine. Never thought to use thermal grease.
Spike Conical- observations and best practices
- Thread starter sheikyerbouti
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I'm sure theoretically that is true. In practice the thermal mass of the wort compared to the temp probe sleeve is going to be minimal.
It's not the thermal mass but the conductivity that matters. If you have air, one of the best insulators after vacuum, separating the probe from the sleeve it's going to take time for the probe itself to register temperature changes and this can cause over/undershoot issues.
Am I missing something with this temperature control? The outlets are not spaced far enough apart to plug both the pump and the heat belt up securely. I did stay up until 2:30 in the morning brewing/cleaning up, so maybe I’m just brain dead right now. I guess it’s plugged in “enough,” but I don’t like having plug exposed.
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user 272106
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The lack of spacing is annoying, but I would never be using both anyways. Temperature overshoots if they happened could cause heating and cooling to compete unnecessarily.
Yeah, I believe Spike says the same thing, but we are in an in-between season. Had a warm day yesterday and then a big temp drop last night and cool day today. I have the temp said at 66 and came in this afternoon and noticed the actual temp was about 64, so I plugged up the heater because I wasn’t sure if it was an overshoot or just due to the room cooling off with the weather.
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i do the same but with a wad of paper towel
I use thermal grease in mine. It is indeed a mess, but why clean it out? I just add more thermal grease when it gets tacky and the only thing that ever goes into the thermowell is the temp probe, so a mess of thermal grease isn't hurting anything. you just have to wipe the smears of grease off the outside of the thermowell opening if you get really messy
BoilerInSoCal
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As an update, on my maiden voyage I used a small wad of paper towel. It seems to be working just fine. I have not had any wild or apparent delayed swings (I have the Icemaster Max 2 set 20 degrees below my fermentation temp). I am still tempted to use grease (since I have it) to see if there is any difference, so I may do that next time. But I am noticing that the probe itself is pretty short, so getting it all the way down the thermowell with the grease might require something additional to push it down.
In any event, I am loving my new toy. The sample valve is so convenient. I'm down to just a couple of points left, so now the fun with the manifold will start. Heck, even just watching all the action in the sight glass makes it worth it!
Has anyone ever experienced this? My chiller coil turned the beer into an ice block so I lost a good amount of brew. I'm not sure what I did wrong. Chilling fluid was set at 12F and the beer was chilled to 35F. The temperature sensor (Tilt and temp probe) reported 40F so I guess the chiller just kept chilling. I'm going to guess that the chilling fluid was set too low...I think I did 18F in previous brews.
I had almost 6 gallons in the fermenter to start and transferred 35 pounds of beer into the keg so I'm guessing it's about 85% full...I lost a decent amount of beer from the freeze and I'm guessing it changed the flavor of the beer. Of course this was my first batch of New School Kicks from morebeer so I'll have to brew it again to compare.
I had almost 6 gallons in the fermenter to start and transferred 35 pounds of beer into the keg so I'm guessing it's about 85% full...I lost a decent amount of beer from the freeze and I'm guessing it changed the flavor of the beer. Of course this was my first batch of New School Kicks from morebeer so I'll have to brew it again to compare.
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Yes, your guess would be correct. I believe both Penguin and Spike recommend a temperature of 28 degrees. By setting too low, the coils froze up and were no longer chilling the surrounding beer, thus your temp probe only read 40 degrees.
You can probably expect your alcohol content of what you were able to transfer to be higher than expected. You just freeze-distilled it. At least it will be better than Bud Ice!
Yeah what mcmeader said above is accurate. Your glycol temp is way too low, so it formed ice on your chilling coils. Ice actually insulates your coils and reduces the rate of heat removal from your beer, so it kept the temp of your beer above your set point of 35, and the chiller kept running trying to compensate creating more ice. You made a feedback loop of problems here.
Turn your glycol temp up to 26-28 and that should solve your problem.
Also, FYI, I just noticed my coil iced up with glycol temp set to 28 F and my temp control set to 38 F. I had no problem getting the temp down to 38 earlier, but later I noticed the glycol was pumping for a while and the temp wouldn’t go below 39.1 F. Turned off the temp control, released the CO2 in the conical and opened her up and pulled the coil out. The bottom of the coil was a block of ice.
I changed the temp of the glycol to 31 and now have the heat belt running to warm the fermenter up to 46 F to give it some time to thaw. Then I’ll try cold crashing again.
I wonder why it froze up on me...
I changed the temp of the glycol to 31 and now have the heat belt running to warm the fermenter up to 46 F to give it some time to thaw. Then I’ll try cold crashing again.
I wonder why it froze up on me...
Because you got it too cold.
In order to prevent condensation you would need to have a complete moisture proof "jacket" around the outside of the insulation to prevent room moisture from getting into the insulation at the point within that condensation conditions exist. ie, certain temp and certain humidity level.
I presume you are using closed cell foam insulation? If properly taped up that will provide it's own vapor barrier, but you have to get the seam completely stuck together. You also need to tape and/or glue all the joints and ends.
Well yes, apparently so, but since I had the glycol said to the recommended temp and didn’t have the fermenter temp control set too low, I’m surprised it froze up.
I’m using the insulated lines that Spike provided with their TC-100 temp control kit, which are marketed as eliminating condensation.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
https://spikebrewing.com/products/insulated-tubing
Within an insulated jacket of any sort that has a temp differential that falls within the condensation point, you need to be meticulous in preventing moisture from getting in there. It's simple physics. That insulation is "waterproof" so there is no harm done. You would just want to be careful not to let it get moldy or something.
Bad Bubba
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Check your actual glycol temp. Something sounds off.
My Spike insulated glycol lines weep more than a crushed school girl, esp. when the temp/humidity conditions are ripe for this. I am planning to apply another layer of closed cell insulation (e.g. K-Flex) around this. I also expect to get some better energy efficiency from my IceMaster glycol chiller, since the Spike insulation looks to have only a very modest R factor.
Because it is quite difficult to get any kind of seal between the two layers of insulation (e.g. the Spike insulation is "double-lobed", not round), I am wondering whether I need to first wrap the Spike insulation with some moisture barrier, then apply the supplemental (outer) insulation layer? I obviously want to avoid moisture build up between the two.
BoilerInSoCal
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So this week I dry hopped, cold crashed, transferred to kegs, cleaned and immediately refilled with a new brew. For dry hopping, I turned the gas on via the manifold and quickly dumped the hops through the 4". I found that pretty easy even with the chiller coil attached to lines etc. Perhaps not the best way to limit O2 ingress, but I could feel CO2 coming out of the port and I think I will stick to it for now. My dry hops all sank pretty quickly after breaking apart. So, I ordered the 2" TC gas post and will use that to circulate the hops next time they sink so quickly. During cold crash the psi went down from around 7 to about 5, so to transfer, I set my spund valve on my keg at 4...or so I thought. As soon as I opened the valve on the CF10, CO2 blew from the keg into the fermenter and I then noticed that my racking arm was still down, so that churned up some trub, but not too bad. Lesson(s) learned. The rest of transfer went very well. What I really liked was the ease of cleaning. I took it all apart since it looks like there are a bunch of nooks that things can get stuck in. It was easy to wash during mash and resanitize during the boil. As you can see, I am still learning, but this thread has been invaluable and I am really loving my CF10 (and Max2)!
Now to a question. How many of you BIAB? I do (wilser bag and tightest crush I can get on Barley Crusher), and I also let my boil/whirlpool hops go comando. This results in quite a bit of trub in the fermentor. Ground water is still warm here, so I have been transferring at 84 or so and have been waiting a few hours for the wort to get down to pitching temps, which also allows the trub to settle a bit. I've tried pre-pitch dumps and it seemed like I was losing a lot and the sight glass wasn't clearing up. I am wondering if I should even bother and just wait to dump until after fermentation? Or, does it make more sense to just overbuild even more (e.g., 13+ gallons into the CF10 to end up with 10 gallons in kegs) to account for all the loss? Anyone have experience with this?
Now to a question. How many of you BIAB? I do (wilser bag and tightest crush I can get on Barley Crusher), and I also let my boil/whirlpool hops go comando. This results in quite a bit of trub in the fermentor. Ground water is still warm here, so I have been transferring at 84 or so and have been waiting a few hours for the wort to get down to pitching temps, which also allows the trub to settle a bit. I've tried pre-pitch dumps and it seemed like I was losing a lot and the sight glass wasn't clearing up. I am wondering if I should even bother and just wait to dump until after fermentation? Or, does it make more sense to just overbuild even more (e.g., 13+ gallons into the CF10 to end up with 10 gallons in kegs) to account for all the loss? Anyone have experience with this?
I second this. You shouldn't be getting icing at 28F on your glycol. I've cold crashed to that temp before (in freezer set to not go lower than about 20F) without freezing.
The thermostat on the glycol chiller is accurate. I increased it to 33 yesterday and chilled down to 40 in steps once I confirmed the ice had melted. Seems to be doing ok now. Haven’t confirmed that no more ice had formed, but it shouldn’t at that temperature.
All I can figure is the freezing point of the beer is around 27-28 and trying to crash from 67 to 38 all at once resulted in having too long an exposure to glycol at that temperature even though it didn’t seem to take that long to cool down to temp, but that still shouldn’t have happened per Spike’s and Penguin’s recommendations. I have reached out to Spike’s technical service for their input.
I went with the lazy man's approach to dealing with the condensation. I have the tube setup so it comes out of the CF5, down the side and about 18" off the floor before it comes back up and into the chiller. This dip in the center is perfect for collecting the bulk of the condensation which drops into a bucket below. The condensation follows the tube rather than dropping straight to the floor so the bucket collects all of the water as it forms.
I also had my chilling fluid set to 12F so it obviously made a LOT of condensate...setting the chilling liquid to 28F helped.
I also had my chilling fluid set to 12F so it obviously made a LOT of condensate...setting the chilling liquid to 28F helped.
The easiest thing you could do to control moisture would be to run the chiller at the highest temp you can and still hit your setpoint. If the glycol is above the condensation point it’s not going to condense. If you are doing lagers or cold crashing that’s probably not going to work for you.
If you want/need to take on the challenge. The best scenario would be to have the insulation homogeneous. The vapor barrier should be on the warm (outside) of the insulation. This gives it its best chance to stop the travel of moisture before it gets to the condensation point. All cracks and seams should be sealed air tight.
You might get away with doubling up your insulation, but any time you make a material change in the middle you run the risk of moisture settling at that transition because it tends to create a sharper temp change.
If you want/need to take on the challenge. The best scenario would be to have the insulation homogeneous. The vapor barrier should be on the warm (outside) of the insulation. This gives it its best chance to stop the travel of moisture before it gets to the condensation point. All cracks and seams should be sealed air tight.
You might get away with doubling up your insulation, but any time you make a material change in the middle you run the risk of moisture settling at that transition because it tends to create a sharper temp change.
danclark714
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Spike and Penguin are not engineering thier products to work together. I've had a ton of issues during cold crash with mine. I've effectively resigned to cold crashing down to 40F. No combinations of glycol temperatures, small temp drop steps, or ambient temperatures has been able to get me anywhere close to <35F on my beer. Additionally, the chiller itself drops a bunch of condensate all over my floor when it's struggling to keep temps down. It's infuriating for them to just point to each other after spending so much money on my system. Conveniently, I saw Penguin just released a chiller with a much larger glycol reservoir which I have been speculating is the main reason I can't hit my temps.
I went with the lazy man's approach to dealing with the condensation. I have the tube setup so it comes out of the CF5, down the side and about 18" off the floor before it comes back up and into the chiller. This dip in the center is perfect for collecting the bulk of the condensation which drops into a bucket below. The condensation follows the tube rather than dropping straight to the floor so the bucket collects all of the water as it forms.
I also had my chilling fluid set to 12F so it obviously made a LOT of condensate...setting the chilling liquid to 28F helped.
i do the same thing. condensation collected is minimum, maybe half a cup. that is in the summer time when the basement is more humid, even less in winter time.
try insulating the conical itself. i wrap mine in a couple blankets during the crash, hand-clamping as necessary to get a 'closed' layer of blankets around the conical. made a huge difference in easily getting down to 30 degrees during a crash.
danclark714
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Yeah I get that but my brewhouse is also an entertaining space for us. I shouldn't have to wrap a bunch of equipment in blankets; I haven't seen breweries doing anything like that. The ambient temps I keep fairly low too. I think they just need to improve the design either with the conical/coil, the chiller, or both. Just my $0.02. The systems work great in all other steps of the process; just not cold crashing.
That's because large fermenters are already pre-wrapped i.e. jacketed. This is a well-known issue with smaller non-jacketed conicals that use immersion coils as heat exchangers. On the one hand you already have the disadvantage of a rather large surface-to-volume ratio. Compound that with poor insulation (neoprene jackets are only marginally effective) and the very small surface of the coil and you won't be able to reach temperatures much below 34-35°F no matter what brand of glycol chiller you buy.
commercial conicals are jacketed, no need to add extra insulation over the outer surface. they make jacketed conicals at the homebrew scale but selection is limited and they are spendy, you get what you pay for. that being said, the spike insulating sleeve on the conical looks nice but really isn't a great insulator. that is one improvement i hope the offer, an upgraded jacket. won't help with sweat on the sight glass, bottom valve, elbows, etc. but will go a long way in helping with cold crash.
EDIT: ^what he said
