mckenry said:
Thanks Florian,
Just pulled mine apart and the smell reminded me of a mechanics workshop. I followed the instructions on the brewtech website for cleaning and obviously its just not enough.
Am due to brew this weekend and I think you saved my arse!
No worries mckenry, am glad that I remembered to do it myself.
I'll post a few pics of what I have done so far.
After cleaning the whole unit with the recommended TSP I filled it with a Star San solution at the recommended strength. A bit of overflow helps passivating the outside as well.
I brewed a batch this morning and decided to no chill straight in the fermenter, rather than in the Braumeister which I have been doing on the last few brews. The idea being that at least I can no chill away from the trub at the bottom of the BM, and any junk that might still accumulate at the bottom of the Chronical once chilled can be easily dumped out the bottom valve.
Before I transferred the wort I purged the Chronical with Co2, the hose fits neatly into the rotating racking arm which is inside the ball valve.
In the above pic you can also notice that I have ditched the 90 degree elbow that comes standard and is normally attached between bottom outlet and ball valve.
I just can't see the point of beer and yeast and trub sitting in that elbow during ferment.
Once I have a triclover butterfly valve I might attach the elbow
behind the valve for easier trub removal.
After purging I racked the hot wort directly through the lid port into the Chronical. The silicone hose goes all the way to the bottom to avoid oxygenation at this stage. Once the wort is chilled to ferment temp I will then oxygenate the wort before pitching.
My plan was to attach one of those sanitary air filters to the bung in the lid port, but the brew shop around the corner had no idea what I was talking about and I didn't want to steal the one from my oxygen setup, so I just used 137 layers of different tissue papers and attached them with a hair band to the port. Hopefully that will let enough clean air through so my new fermenter doesn't implode before the first ferment.
Once the wort is chilled I will carry the full fermenter into the garage (I have tested carrying it full with Star San and it works quite well), stick it in the fridge and push the STC-1000 probe into the thermowell.
As for fridge, I had one that I thought was suitable but of course the door shelves were in the way as usual. Rather than hacking into them I took it off completely and reattached the seal in an amateur effort with duct tape.
I could have just used the big fridge next to it but there was too much stuff in the freezer compartment which I couldn't be bothered shifting around.
