Does anyone have this unit? I can’t find much online in the way of reviews on the newer 1/5 model. There is some old unit reviews, but they were 1/3 hp units. Curious if this is too weak at 1450 btu vs the penguin which has positive feedback.
Would like to see a comparison between the stasis glycol chiller, the grainfather chiller and the as brewtech 1/5hp chiller.
So I just spent a few minutes emailing back and forth with Eric from Penguin and placed an order for the 1/2hp unit. At the end of the day, cold crashing or trying to bring down a warm wort to pitching temp, the bigger BTU capacity of the 1/2hp unit will more than compensate for a larger reservoir in the SSBT. BTUs per Dollar, the Penguin wins.
Thanks for the physics lesson ....
All that said, I can keep this short. Would you like to compare functionality? Numbers are obviously on your side right?
HP is largely a made up /meaningless number and doesn't equate to cooling capacity or wattage consumed. HP is the wrong way to compare chillers, especially across different brands. HP is more about marketing than anything meaningful. The real way to compare chillers would be via BTU/hr at a specified temp.... but that's only if you believe the manufacturer isn't fudging those numbers. I don't think SSbrew is guilty of this, but side by side testing we've done on Icemaster has shown that they perform at less than 50% of the advertised capacity when tested at 28F. Now they don't make any temperature claims, but even at 110F we couldn't get it to do the advertised figure.
Even within SSbrew's own line they don't agree on what 1HP is equal to
1/5HP = 1450 BTU/hr = 1HP = 7250 BTU/hr
3/8HP = 3576 BTU/hr = 1HP = 9536 BTU/hr
3/4HP = 5327 BTU/hr = 1HP = 7102 BTU/hr
When I am talking about being more efficient it's via BTU/hr per Watt.
28F is the operating temperature of the chiller.... the glycol is 28F, not the beer.
I would venture to guess that anyone struggling to cool beyond 40F has stalled due to too cold of glycol creating icing on the cooling coils which prevents proper heat transfer to the glycol.
Nope, see the picture below. The beer in this batch was at 28F at different points in time.
At the risk of being rude but I really have to ask, do you have the slighest idea how a chiller works and how its performance can be measured and quantified?Even within SSbrew's own line they don't agree on what 1HP is equal to
1/5HP = 1450 BTU/hr = 1HP = 7250 BTU/hr
3/8HP = 3576 BTU/hr = 1HP = 9536 BTU/hr
3/4HP = 5327 BTU/hr = 1HP = 7102 BTU/hr
When I am talking about being more efficient it's via BTU/hr per Watt.
He's referring to the technical specifications of a product, not your particular case.
Interesting. Not to be argumentative, but as you are aware, other threads have many HBT members having trouble getting below 40F with their Penguin chiller. As for my Icemaster 100, I easily was able to go to 28F as can be seen in a picture on another thread. My thought why Penguin owners were struggling was due to Penguin's glycol reservoir capacity itself (1/3 HP only five quarts, 1/2 HP only two gallons, and 1 HP only three gallons), as compared to the Icemaster 100 glycol reservoir of eight gallons. I've never read where someone posted of achieving 28F with any of your units.
Now if you are referring to efficiency and cost, and trying to say your product is better than the competition, I will take your word for it. However, I care about the unit of actually obtaining a crashing lower temperature of at least 28F and not on any differences in pennies saved or not. The Icemaster 100 achieves this.
Maybe I'm misunderstanding your argument or position....
28F is the operating temperature of the chiller.... the glycol is 28F, not the beer.
I would venture to guess that anyone struggling to cool beyond 40F has stalled due to too cold of glycol creating icing on the cooling coils which prevents proper heat transfer to the glycol.
You may be correct about his post#15.
But as can be seen above and in post#17 he comments about my post#16 regarding the struggles members were having with Penguin chillers only chilling to 40F. Did he combined two of the various posts and answered in one post. One can't really tell.
As a consumer, I want something that produces results. I suspect other consumers want the same and are not concerned about splitting pennies about efficiency claims.
There are far too many variables to do cooling product comparisons like suggested above, and this is hinted at by the gentleman from Penguin.
Heat loads play are far larger role in hitting steady state temperatures than the operation of the chiller and cold side reservoir. This is addressed by insulation and ambient temps (and ensuring good convention / conduction at the chilling interface). The chiller and reservoir then answer ramp rate, operational efficiency, and duty cycle (which translates to how long it will last before one of the braze joints or compressor fails from cyclic load).
At the end, most brewers don’t care about the latter, maybe they should.
You took a partial quote and I think are assuming I'm saying something I'm not.
The numbers quoted aren't talking about load necessarily. I'm saying that HP is not a good way to compare chillers. And provided an example that within their line they don't agree as to how many BTU/hr should be represented by 1HP. So you definitely shouldn't use HP to compare chillers across different brands.
Maybe if I restate it a bit different it'll be clearer:
1/5HP = 1450 BTU/hr = 1HP = 7250 BTU/hr
In other words if 1/5th of a horsepower is equal to 1450 BTU/hr, it must mean that 7250 BTU/hr is equal to 1HP because 7250*1/5 = 1450
3/8HP = 3576 BTU/hr = 1HP = 9536 BTU/hr
In other words if 3/8th of a horsepower is equal to 3576 BTU/hr, it must mean that 9536 BTU/hr is equal to 1HP because 9536*3/8 = 3576
3/4HP = 5327 BTU/hr = 1HP = 7102 BTU/hr
In other words if 3/4th of a horsepower is equal to 5327 BTU/hr, it must mean that 7102 BTU/hr is equal to 1HP because 7102*3/4 = 5327
All 3 numbers of what equals 1HP should be pretty close together if you wanted to accurately compare them via their HP rating. For instance if comparing based on HP, 2x 3/8HP chillers should have the same output as a 3/4HP chiller but they don't.
Not here to start an argument, just trying to inform.
Let me give you the crash course: 1HP equals nothing! That is just how much power the unit will draw when the compressor is running.
other members have taken in trying to get their Penguin chiller to cold crash below 40F.
Anyone having issues with a cold crash below 40F is having an icing issue. If any of our customers need help they should be reaching out to [email protected]. I've walked several people through this particular issue, and after it's been explained they no longer have an issue.
I would think publicly posting this solution would be easy, would help reduce user's frustration, would be efficient and not entail the user to wait on an email discussion when they are in the middle of a cold crash and your business is closed. Can you post this solution you have talked about and explained?
I would venture to guess that anyone struggling to cool beyond 40F has stalled due to too cold of glycol creating icing on the cooling coils which prevents proper heat transfer to the glycol.
Apparently you have not read the various posts in other threads on regarding the great lengths other members have taken in trying to get their Penguin chiller to cold crash below 40F. Specifically, they went to extremes with insulation, insulation and placing the fermenter in an enclosure, reducing ambient temperatures etc. There is an established pattern of them not being able to go below 40F.
I guess I have difficulty with Penguin's posting how better their product is (post#13). If you read their post, it was they that said their unit provides more cooling (even though members have difficulty reaching 40F). Then in a later post, they introduced negative jabs suggesting other manufacturers are fudging numbers.
@Beholder, it is too easy to cite the various factors that affect cold crashing and then at the same time ignore Penguin's claim their smaller unit with a smaller reservoir provides more cooling. Believe me, those members that have invested a lot of time and energy to obtain a lower temperature below 40F with their Penguin chiller would probably not agree with your insinuation or conclusion ("At the end, most brewers don’t care about the latter, maybe they should.") that they are not caring.
I wonder if Penguin would take the lead and ask the other manufactures to submit their units along with theirs to an independent lab? I suspect they will not. So, at the end, we are left with real user's experiences and results rather than sales hype.
Any case I have ever seen of a stalled crash in the 40F-45F range is due to too cold of glycol. If you freeze beer to your cooling coils it acts as a bit of an insulator, the heat is not transferring to the glycol as it should.
I've also posted this info on other threads in the past, and it's available on our website as well.
The solution is to raise glycol temps to 35F for a couple hours, melt the ice, then bring glycol temps back down to 28F-30F. We don't recommend going lower than 28F for brewing applications as it'll tend to lead to this issue.
The “latter” I was referring to was to efficiency, duty cycle, etc., but the “former” was hitting set temperatures, which certainly brewers do care about!
I am familiar with the difficulties of others on this forum, and conclude that while the chiller may be a contributing factor, the root cause is poor conical design, which is what I referred to in my earlier post of heat loads and conduction limits. In general, issues are faced with conicals that are neoprene (or other low R-value insulation) with a bunch of ports and cooled with an internal coil. When conduction limited (no convection assistance), the heat rate is limited by surface area, which is very small on an internal coil. One can compensate this by driving a higher thermal gradient across the coils, but this promotes icing, which can further limit heat rate.
As a reference point, I have a penguin chiller with my fermenter in my garage in Florida (90+ ambient in summer) and can readily chill my fermenter below 30. The difference is in the conical, which is internally insulated and glycol jacketed with insulated cooling lines feeding it for good measure.
Fair enough. Thanks for the clarification. You bring up a good point about the conical design could be a contributing factor. What I have a hard time understanding are the posts involving Spike's CF5, CF10 etc conicals where individuals have experienced cold crashing issues using a Penguin chiller. I have a Spike CF10 and as can be seen, I have not experienced such an issue here in Arizona. However, my CF10 is located in my game room and not subject to the extreme heat or old.
While Spike does recommend the Penguin Chiller, it just seems too coincidental that so many users would have issues trying to cold crash below 40F.
....To answer the icing question, it’s about rate of change... high temperature deltas cause ice to form on the coils and it becomes a runaway reaction with more ice forming and not pulling the heat into the glycol. Popping the temperature up melts the ice and since the beer is colder at this point (lower temperature delta), the ice formation never begins in the first place as the heat flows. This drives the recommendation to crash in steps for coil cooled fermenters since it keeps the temperature gradient from getting too high and icing the coil.
Thanks! I don't understand how and why the issue would not come back after following your directions since nothing was changed. Wouldn't the icing on the coils return?
When I checked earlier, I could not find the solution on your website. Could you post the link to it so as I can keep it and refer others to it?
Bollocks. The advertised HP is the power rating of the compressor the unit employs and that does translate directly to a power draw value. The advertised BTUs/Hr is the measured chilling power under standardised conditions which might or might not match actual operating conditions but that's an entirely different issue that some users have rightfully raised.Ah, so you are assuming HP means something as far as power draw, that's where you went wrong. That may be the case for electrical motors, that industry is pretty standardized.
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