Fermzilla

[WEF]

Hey, that was me I think. Although I wasn't having a go, I just asked the question and then didn't even bother replying after that. It was more tongue in cheek than anything.

Was purely because there is this perception when someone comes on board and speaks the way you did it is suspicious and has happened before, but mainly with Keg-King employees.

Fair enough...

 

[Mya]

Even better - screw a hook in to the roof of your fermenting chamber and hang it from that. Now it doesn't contact anything and all of the heat from it spreads to the surrounding area, as opposed to a heap of it being absorbed by the bottom of the chamber that it is sitting on

Kind of defeats the whole purpose of the heating belt then, may as well just use any old heating source.

I've experimented using ambient heating rather than direct contact and it is extremely inefficient. If it is quite cold outside of your chamber (probably not too much of a problem in aussie, but for example last week in NZ with temps at 5 overnight, I wasn't able to get my fermenter above 20.5 degC for diacetyl rest with ambient only heating into my 200L fermentation fridge with good seals etc), or you're trying to brew a kveik strain, you're shit outta luck. Plus warming the air of an entire chamber of air (with very low heat capacity) vs directly heating the water (with a very high heat capacity) is inherently very inefficient in terms of energy use, and also takes a lot longer to actually warm up the fermenter eg for diacetyl rest, but I imagine most don't care about energy inefficiency.

The whole "heat rises" thing applies to large spaces but if we're talking about a tiny chamber just holding a 30L fermenter the air is sufficiently homogeneous that there will be a very negligible temperature gradient except for within a few inches of the heat source.

WEAL posted a reference that PET could handle 120F or 49C, my heating belt gets so hot that it can't be touched for more than a second, so would be well above 70C. The other issue is getting effective sanitation with the likes of sodium percarb that likes the water to be hot as hell to get an effective sanitation.

 

[WEF]

Same heat belt that I use. I've never had problems with it sitting on my fridge floor before, but I've never had my temperature controller sitting at 35C before either. Interestingly, the belt was fine, despite the fridge starting to melt, but I get where you're coming from with cheap electrical devices.
Apologies for my post questioning your allegiances. My bullshit detector goes into overdrive when someone new comes on board and only posts comments that are pro one side and negative the other. There's been too much of it on here over the past year or 2. Welcome on board and I look forward to hearing your posts re brewing.

No probs i understand and thanks for your post, water under the bridge now. I might just hang around some more

 

[WEF]

Kind of defeats the whole purpose of the heating belt then, may as well just use any old heating source.

I've experimented using ambient heating rather than direct contact and it is extremely inefficient. If it is quite cold outside of your chamber (probably not too much of a problem in aussie, but for example last week in NZ with temps at 5 overnight, I wasn't able to get my fermenter above 20.5 degC for diacetyl rest with ambient only heating into my 200L fermentation fridge with good seals etc), or you're trying to brew a kveik strain, you're shit outta luck. Plus warming the air of an entire chamber of air (with very low heat capacity) vs directly heating the water (with a very high heat capacity) is inherently very inefficient in terms of energy use, and also takes a lot longer to actually warm up the fermenter eg for diacetyl rest, but I imagine most don't care about energy inefficiency.

The whole "heat rises" thing applies to large spaces but if we're talking about a tiny chamber just holding a 30L fermenter the air is sufficiently homogeneous that there will be a very negligible temperature gradient except for within a few inches of the heat source.

WEAL posted a reference that PET could handle 120F or 49C, my heating belt gets so hot that it can't be touched for more than a second, so would be well above 70C. The other issue is getting effective sanitation with the likes of sodium percarb that likes the water to be hot as hell to get an effective sanitation.

The FermZilla comes with drill out holes in the lid for future upgrades in the pipeline, assuming they'll be for temp probe and heater wand of some sort. Would a heating wand placed directly into the wort be the most effective way of keeping temps consistent and stable? Also, i'd be a little concerned how close the temp probe would be to the heating wand in a setup like this...

 

[KegLand-com-au]

Same heat belt that I use. I've never had problems with it sitting on my fridge floor before, but I've never had my temperature controller sitting at 35C before either. Interestingly, the belt was fine, despite the fridge starting to melt, but I get where you're coming from with cheap electrical devices.
Apologies for my post questioning your allegiances. My bullshit detector goes into overdrive when someone new comes on board and only posts comments that are pro one side and negative the other. There's been too much of it on here over the past year or 2. Welcome on board and I look forward to hearing your posts re brewing.

Yes the heat belt is not our recommendation for this reason. The heat belt has reasonable watt density. Also a lot of customers tend to insulate around the heat belt as well meaning the surface temperature is even higher. Our recommendation has always been to purchase the heat wrap like this one:

https://www.kegland.com.au/heating-belt-30-watt-853.html


This one has the same wattage but it's much more gentle. I think customers find it a bit more of a pain to use because it doesn't just sit tight on the circumference of the fermenter unless you use masking tape however it does actually work better and it doesnt cost any more than the heat belt. In fact I think these have been on special for the past few weeks.

 

[KegLand-com-au]

The FermZilla comes with drill out holes in the lid for future upgrades in the pipeline, assuming they'll be for temp probe and heater wand of some sort. Would a heating wand placed directly into the wort be the most effective way of keeping temps consistent and stable? Also, i'd be a little concerned how close the temp probe would be to the heating wand in a setup like this...

Yes we do have a coil that can fit to the lid and this will be released soon.

Some customers do use heating want like the glass aquarium or reptile glass heating wands. The main issue with this design is also the watt density. When you have a high watt density (either for cooling or heating) you create two problems inside a fermenter:
1. The localised heat can put stress on yeast if it comes in close contact with the surface of the device which is inevitable if it's immersed.
2. If you have a hot or cold spot in a fermenter that is hotter or colder than the other parts of the fermenter you will get convection currents in the fermenter and this makes it significantly more difficult for yeast and other solids to flocculate.

So I know a lot of customers like the idea of directly heating the wort with an element of some sort or directly chilling it with a glycol coil and this will be possible with the accessories that we are making but in reality it's hard to beat a dedicated fermenting fridge whereby you heat and cool the air surrounding the fermenter as this is the most even heating/cooling that you can apply to the fermenter.

 

[Nullnvoid]

Yes the heat belt is not our recommendation for this reason. The heat belt has reasonable watt density. Also a lot of customers tend to insulate around the heat belt as well meaning the surface temperature is even higher. Our recommendation has always been to purchase the heat wrap like this one:

https://www.kegland.com.au/heating-belt-30-watt-853.html


This one has the same wattage but it's much more gentle. I think customers find it a bit more of a pain to use because it doesn't just sit tight on the circumference of the fermenter unless you use masking tape however it does actually work better and it doesnt cost any more than the heat belt. In fact I think these have been on special for the past few weeks.

Ahh thanks for this info, glad I read this before I bought one. This is a little contradictory to what I asked on the facebook group the other week however and from that feedback I was going to buy the heatbelt!

Thanks for clearing this up

 

[WEF]

Yes we do have a coil that can fit to the lid and this will be released soon.

Some customers do use heating want like the glass aquarium or reptile glass heating wands. The main issue with this design is also the watt density. When you have a high watt density (either for cooling or heating) you create two problems inside a fermenter:
1. The localised heat can put stress on yeast if it comes in close contact with the surface of the device which is inevitable if it's immersed.
2. If you have a hot or cold spot in a fermenter that is hotter or colder than the other parts of the fermenter you will get convection currents in the fermenter and this makes it significantly more difficult for yeast and other solids to flocculate.

So I know a lot of customers like the idea of directly heating the wort with an element of some sort or directly chilling it with a glycol coil and this will be possible with the accessories that we are making but in reality it's hard to beat a dedicated fermenting fridge whereby you heat and cool the air surrounding the fermenter as this is the most even heating/cooling that you can apply to the fermenter.

Good news on the heat coil, thanks for confirming this!

My current setup with he heat belt on the fridge floor seems to be working fine (seems to be equivalent to you recommendation) though i know it can only be improved so i would love to get a temp probe inside the fermenter rather than my current setup where it is strapped to the side and protected by a layer of thermal tape and foam to concentrate the reading from the fermenter side rather than the surrounding air. Should i look at adding/modify the lid to add a thermowell/temp probe or do you have something in the pipeline for this as well?

 

[goatchop41]

Heat needs to come from the bottom and the yeast activity will cause convection in the liquid to distribute it.

Yeah, nah...If you warm the entire space around it, then the whole body of liquid is being heated by the ambient environment, and not just from one specific point.

 

[Schikitar]

I had an issue where my carb cap was leaking, lucky i caught this out before putting the wort in. I managed to sort it out, i think it occurred when i screwed the carb cap on too tight and the rubber seal somehow got messed up. The solution was to reseat the seal in the carb cap and apply just over hand pressure when tightening it up.

That fixed it, thanks!

 

[user 44804]

Maybe don't whinge about it until you actually put it under some pressure and see if it just pops out?

lel hardly a 'whinge' mate. Thought my posts were pretty objective to be honest and was just letting the other guy know that theirs isn't the only one with dents.

I like KegLand have no issues getting a damaged product as long as there's an opportunity to get it replaced. KL has since offered a replacement which is great. Would have preferred an offer within the first few emails but I get it that minor dents are an expected part of the manufacturing process and KL didn't want an avalanche of returns.

FYI the dent doesn't just push back into place. Doesn't matter how hard you press. It was obvious holding it in front of me that it wasn't going to. It's a bit silly that someone should have to heat up PET or have a CO2 rig before they query it

 

[sixfignig]

@KegLand-com-au

With a very decent purge via the carb caps in the yeast container, do you think it's reasonable to assume you could remove 100% of oxygen?

 

[Kenf]

Reading Reg's post (106) about 'hot fill' I did look up what it was, a lot of juices get hot filled into PET bottles which can take close to boiling. For the bog standard plastics I came across this list.

What are the hot fill temperatures for the plastic bottles?
Hot fill temperatures for plastic bottles and jars.

PET (polyethylene terephthalate) 120°F
PS (polystyrene) 150°F
HDPE (high density polyethylene) 145°F
LDPE (low density polyethylene) 120°F
PP (polypropylene) 165°F
PVC (polyvinyl chloride) 140°F

NOTE: The information provided above is intended to provide a relative comparison of plastic resin hot fill temperatures and should only be used as guide during the selection process. Individual plastic bottle resins may have hot fill temperatures that vary from those listed above. It is the buyer's responsibility to make the final determination as to whether a given bottle is suitable for their hot fill process. Chemical and temperature compatibility testing is, and will always be, the final determining factor in the bottle selection process.

Thanks for that WEAL - I was going to mention where I used to work we made and filled plastic juice bottles & the clear plastic bottles were filled at temperatures above 50! Actually it had to be above 90 for shelf stability but below 95 or the bottle would melt! Glass on the other hand was 98!

 

[wide eyed and legless]

lel

FYI the dent doesn't just push back into place. Doesn't matter how hard you press. It was obvious holding it in front of me that it wasn't going to. It's a bit silly that someone should have to heat up PET or have a CO2 rig before they query it

I think of plastic pretty much like fishing line, they have memory from manufacture, it would be difficult if not impossible to fix.
Good to see they are replacing it.

 

[Truman42]

Hmmmmm.. So do I bite the bullet and buy one of these hyped up fermzillas tomorrow? Wait and see what KK have hidden under that jumper? Or keep using my SS Brewtech 7 G chronical and be happy with 1 fermenter?

Decisions decisions....

 

[wide eyed and legless]

Hmmmmm.. So do I bite the bullet and buy one of these hyped up fermzillas tomorrow? Wait and see what KK have hidden under that jumper? Or keep using my SS Brewtech 7 G chronical and be happy with 1 fermenter?

Decisions decisions....

"Open the box"

 

[sp0rk]

Not sure, i'll inspect it when i decide to clean it and will clean if needed.


No need to wrap the belt around fermenter, just lay it on the floor.

Even better - screw a hook in to the roof of your fermenting chamber and hang it from that. Now it doesn't contact anything and all of the heat from it spreads to the surrounding area, as opposed to a heap of it being absorbed by the bottom of the chamber that it is sitting on

Yeah don't do that
Heat belts are not air heating elements, their surface watt density is too high and they don't have any fins or surface area for radiating heat
They're designed to pass heat via direct contact
I've seen them melt and catch fire
9 times out of 10 nothing will happen, but there is the chance they'll burn your house down

 

[Dan Pratt]

Yeah don't do that
Heat belts are not air heating elements, their surface watt density is too high and they don't have any fins or surface area for radiating heat
They're designed to pass heat via direct contact
I've seen them melt and catch fire
9 times out of 10 nothing will happen, but there is the chance they'll burn your house down

fark you have me worried, Ive had my heat belts just sitting at the base of the fridge for about the past 5yrs.....

 

[sp0rk]

You'll notice if you put your hand on a free hanging heat belt it'll be pretty hot
Put your hand on a heat mat and it's no where near as hot
All about surface watt density
Put the belt around a fermenter, or at the very least around a cube/jerry of water so it's passing the heat to something that will accept it readily and retain it better

 

[Joshed1]

Hmmmmm.. So do I bite the bullet and buy one of these hyped up fermzillas tomorrow? Wait and see what KK have hidden under that jumper? Or keep using my SS Brewtech 7 G chronical and be happy with 1 fermenter?

Decisions decisions....

I'm in exactly the same boat here