Fermentation fridge vs temp controlled conical

[stevodevo]

Hi All,

I've getting back into brewing after a fairly decent break. I'm trying to streamline all my processes, so have been very interested in options like the Grainfather Conical fermenter paired with the glycol chiller. That got me googling for other comparable options and now I'm a bit torn after coming across companies like SS Bretech and Spike that have Unitank options. This is going to be a fairly major investment for what is essentially a hobby for me (I don't drink alot) so I'm drawn to options that are a bit more future proof and give options like pressure transfers (which I know the GF can do) and fermenting under pressure, which I don't think the GF can do?

Long story short, I see there are plenty of SS vs Spike comparisons (and a few Grainfather Conical vs XYZ), so that should keep me busy with some reading on that front. What I'm after is some opinions or real-world experience from fellow Aussies (QLD in particular) that compares ongoing running costs for a fermentation fridge against an external chiller through either the GF integrated (and insulated) heating/cooling other conicals with external heating/cooling and no insulation.

My initial thoughts are that an fermentation fridge will be the most electrically cost effective and run far less due to the insulating properties of a fridge, but may take longer to ramp up down temps due to it being essentially ambient temp that's affecting the change. Next would be the GF with the integrated insulation and close contact with the wort. Last (but not least) would be other conicals which I feel may be the most affected by the ambient temps (although, I suppose most come with insulation "jackets") in my garage, and in turn require a lot more run time from the external heating/cooling sources.

Anyway, hopefully that gives enough of an idea about the pro's and con's I'm weighing up to get some food for thought thrown my way from those with experience, or that have given this some thought as well. I should also point out again, the decision to potentially upgrade up from a fermentation fridge is based on streamlining processes and making life easier, and to a slightly lesser extent, ongoing running costs. Upfront cost is not the major deciding factor (up to a point).

Thanks,
Steve

 

[Leyther]

I just bought my first SS Chronical, I went through the same process and decided that on cost alone the basic SS chronical would do, you can pickup a cheap fermenting fridge for < $50, temp controller < $100, heat pad < $40, I already has all of these.

With both the GF and brewtech fermentors your going to need to buy a glycol chiller or rig up some water cooler. The glycol chillers are expensive. The GF has in built heating but for the brewtech your also going to need to buy the heating pack. The new GF fermentor does look good value in comparison to the brewtech one and I liked that trick valve it has which is one less thing to clean but it was still ~800 where the basic brewtech can be got for ~$500.

The basic brewtech can do pressure transfer upto 5PSI (I think), I purchased the barbed fitting with built in PRV (2.5PSI) for this purpose. As for pressure fermenting I suspect it can do that also but with limited PSI and would need a spunding valve which are cheap enough to buy.

 

[Mister clark]

Not really what you asked, but, you could get a second hand fridge, heater, temp controller Fermentasarus with pressue kit and it cost you less that $200.

 

[stevodevo]

Haha yes that's true, but don't let my wife hear ya talking like that Mister Clark! Seriously though, it's a great suggestion, and I am still considering a Fermentasaurus some extent. I suppose I'm just getting to that stage in my life where I've worked hard for a long time and desiring some more big boys toys, and I'm willing to drop some of that hard earned cash to get myself something special. I tried getting into motorcycles a while back, so a midlife crisis Harley is never going to be a thing for me, so it's going to have to be more shiny stainless steel to sit next to the Braumeister

I'm slowly answering my own questions, and Leyther got me thinking and looking more into SS Brewtech gear. I'm now leaning heavily towards an SS 7 Gallon Unitank. That is WAY over the top for what I actually need, but I think I'll appreciate using something almost semi-pro, and I shouldn't find myself wanting for an upgrade anytime into the foreseeable future.

Next I'll have to figure out if I get a big cheap fridge to sit it in, or run chilled water through the inbuilt immersion chiller from an external source. I think a glycol chiller is off the cards if I'm spending so much on the fermenter, so I'm thinking about running the water through a spare keg in my kegerator. That'll mean I can only have two kegs of beer, but I rarely use all three taps anyway, so I'll cross that bridge when I come to it. I've always got my little bar fridge, but that doesn't really get down past 6-7 degrees. Eh, that'll probably be enough to maintain ale temps I suppose.

 

[TheSumOfAllBeers]

To the OP : a fridge will beat an insulated jacket every day of the week, so they will be best for running costs and noise.

A contact coil system with a sub zero coolant reservoir will be faster at returning temperatures to whatever you set it to.

The fridge option beats the exterior cooler in almost every practical way, especially when crash chilling or lagering.

Contact cooling only starts to prove itself when you are dealing with highly exothermic fermentation like high gravity brewing with large batch sizes.

Btw I did a DIY contact cooling setup for my conical. Works great for fermentation temps, but struggles to crash cool, and we don’t talk about the running costs

 

[stevodevo]

Nice summary, thanks.

 

[TheSumOfAllBeers]

For clarity, I am not stating that the cooling solutions making their way onto the market are not worth the price.

I am saying that you have to evaluate them according to your needs, and you should not fall into the trap of assuming that more expensive is always superior to cheap (i.e. the future proofing argument).

For the general case a domestic fridge (air cooling) with correct temp probe placement in the FV will operate a better temperature differential from the ambient, will run quieter and with less power. It will maintain a floor temperature of 0-2C regardless of ambient conditions, and will do this with cheap buckets as well as expensive conicals.

Contact cooling (exterior or interior coils) only starts to pull ahead when you are talking about larger FVs and more exothermic fermentations (higher OG, aggressive yeast).

The other pluses around integrated contact cooling:
- smaller footprint
- exterior coolers are multipurpose (dispense cooling) and can do mixed purpose and mixed temperature cooling depending on their setup.
- access controls (like racking arms, dry hop ports, blow off tubes) remain accessible
- low end cooling performance can be addressed by racking to a secondary (cheaper) lagering vessel in a domestic fridge
- i would expect a dedicated jacketed FV to have better than the 15C ambient differential that I currently get

 

[hezzer]

For clarity, I am not stating that the cooling solutions making their way onto the market are not worth the price.

I am saying that you have to evaluate them according to your needs, and you should not fall into the trap of assuming that more expensive is always superior to cheap (i.e. the future proofing argument).

For the general case a domestic fridge (air cooling) with correct temp probe placement in the FV will operate a better temperature differential from the ambient, will run quieter and with less power. It will maintain a floor temperature of 0-2C regardless of ambient conditions, and will do this with cheap buckets as well as expensive conicals.

Contact cooling (exterior or interior coils) only starts to pull ahead when you are talking about larger FVs and more exothermic fermentations (higher OG, aggressive yeast).

The other pluses around integrated contact cooling:
- smaller footprint
- exterior coolers are multipurpose (dispense cooling) and can do mixed purpose and mixed temperature cooling depending on their setup.
- access controls (like racking arms, dry hop ports, blow off tubes) remain accessible
- low end cooling performance can be addressed by racking to a secondary (cheaper) lagering vessel in a domestic fridge
- i would expect a dedicated jacketed FV to have better than the 15C ambient differential that I currently get

Hi All,

I've getting back into brewing after a fairly decent break. I'm trying to streamline all my processes, so have been very interested in options like the Grainfather Conical fermenter paired with the glycol chiller. That got me googling for other comparable options and now I'm a bit torn after coming across companies like SS Bretech and Spike that have Unitank options. This is going to be a fairly major investment for what is essentially a hobby for me (I don't drink alot) so I'm drawn to options that are a bit more future proof and give options like pressure transfers (which I know the GF can do) and fermenting under pressure, which I don't think the GF can do?

Long story short, I see there are plenty of SS vs Spike comparisons (and a few Grainfather Conical vs XYZ), so that should keep me busy with some reading on that front. What I'm after is some opinions or real-world experience from fellow Aussies (QLD in particular) that compares ongoing running costs for a fermentation fridge against an external chiller through either the GF integrated (and insulated) heating/cooling other conicals with external heating/cooling and no insulation.

My initial thoughts are that an fermentation fridge will be the most electrically cost effective and run far less due to the insulating properties of a fridge, but may take longer to ramp up down temps due to it being essentially ambient temp that's affecting the change. Next would be the GF with the integrated insulation and close contact with the wort. Last (but not least) would be other conicals which I feel may be the most affected by the ambient temps (although, I suppose most come with insulation "jackets") in my garage, and in turn require a lot more run time from the external heating/cooling sources.

Anyway, hopefully that gives enough of an idea about the pro's and con's I'm weighing up to get some food for thought thrown my way from those with experience, or that have given this some thought as well. I should also point out again, the decision to potentially upgrade up from a fermentation fridge is based on streamlining processes and making life easier, and to a slightly lesser extent, ongoing running costs. Upfront cost is not the major deciding factor (up to a point).

Thanks,
Steve

Hello Stevo
I use a Braumeister 20L, a pair of GF conical fermenters plus their chiller and an SS 25L conical bucket in a free standing temp controlled fridge plus a trio of plastic fermenters as spares from days gone by. I keg into 19L cornies and bottle any leftovers. I'm Bayside in Brisbane. Happy to chat on email if you like - I'm not sure whether you can PM me on this site though.
cheers
hezzer

 

[yankinoz]

The insulation on most fridges is quite good. Even in the absence of heating or cooling, a large volume of liquid that is not actively fermenting warms slowly in hot weather and cools slowly in cold weather.

 

[Holden4th]

I've inherited a small chest freezer that will take a fermenter and it also has space to fit a corny keg. I've done my first brew in it and set the temp on the temp controller at 19 degrees. I noticed that it fluctuated from 17 - 19 degrees but assume that fermentation woudn't stall at these temperatures. As said by the previous poster, the insulation helps.

 

[Rocker1986]

I've inherited a small chest freezer that will take a fermenter and it also has space to fit a corny keg. I've done my first brew in it and set the temp on the temp controller at 19 degrees. I noticed that it fluctuated from 17 - 19 degrees but assume that fermentation woudn't stall at these temperatures. As said by the previous poster, the insulation helps.

You can most likely change that setting depending on your temp controller. Mine's set at 0.3C for that setting, and the temp probe is taped to the side of the fermenter underneath a thick layer of foam, which is much better than just dangling it in the fridge/freezer. During fermentation of an ale it only fluctuates between 18 and 18.3. The fridge doesn't run often to maintain it either, so it's not constantly flicking on and off every minute.

 

[gib8]

I am using a fridge with a small conical fermenter (70l).

The electronics are from BrewPi. It has also a heater built in, for cold Austrian winters.

Regards
Bruno