I waltzed into the shed last night and noticed the cube holding my recent attempt at a Schneider Weisse wasn't quite airtight 
. A quick squeeze between the calves indicated an airleak around one of the covers.
My current winter fermentation regime involves the use of a tub of water, with an immersion element and pond pump to keep everything at 18C. Since I only have one tub and one temp controller available, I decided to experiment;
It turns out my second fermenter sits perfectly in a 25L bucket, with just 5L of water necessary to create a jacket around its external wall. I grabbed a bigger pond pump and pumped the warm water up from the existing tub. Then I allowed the overflow to run back down into the tub. My plan was to create a sort of heat exchange system, over two tiers. Pretty simple stuff.
Not wanting to discover a messy shed by morning, I introduced the "Oh-my-god-she's-gonna-blow" overflow system (aka red bucket), that should deal with any critical/unbalanced flow.
I have dubbed it the F.H.E.W.R.S, (pronounced fewers);
Fermentation Heat Exchange Water Reticulation System
Better acronyms are welcome
Obviously, I was bored. Enjoy.
First draft. The bottom tub holds about 20L of water at 18C, courtesy of a 100W aquarium pump. This water is pumped to the top fermenter warmer via the green garden hose. The water is then returned to the bottom vessel via the clear tubing to be warmed up again.
I've coloured the water routes (Pumpy style :beerbang: ) to further illustrate the engineering involved.
Red is the warm water heading north to keep the top fermenter at 18C
Blue is the returning cooler water
Yellow is the Oh-my-God-she's-gonna-blow overflow line
The puddle area to the bottom-left is intentional.
This is a close-up of the business-end of the process. Barely visible is the aquarium pump and heater. The clear return hose shows the cooled water returning to the reservoir.
Notice the carefully drilled offset overflow and backflow pipes. I had to pull out the laser sights for this job. Also note the bucket of Iodophor watching everything in the background. It has nothing to do with this story.
Nice close-up of the Oh-my-God-she's-gonna-blow overflow vessel. Note the late addition of yet another return pipeline from the red bucket to the main tub (reused the bit of rubber tube taken from my stainless braid).
The final incarnation, with the lower vessel at 17C and the top at 16.7C. This morning, both were at 19C...potential disaster avoided...pretty happy.
Well, that was fun.... now back to work
. A quick squeeze between the calves indicated an airleak around one of the covers. My current winter fermentation regime involves the use of a tub of water, with an immersion element and pond pump to keep everything at 18C. Since I only have one tub and one temp controller available, I decided to experiment;
It turns out my second fermenter sits perfectly in a 25L bucket, with just 5L of water necessary to create a jacket around its external wall. I grabbed a bigger pond pump and pumped the warm water up from the existing tub. Then I allowed the overflow to run back down into the tub. My plan was to create a sort of heat exchange system, over two tiers. Pretty simple stuff.
Not wanting to discover a messy shed by morning, I introduced the "Oh-my-god-she's-gonna-blow" overflow system (aka red bucket), that should deal with any critical/unbalanced flow.
I have dubbed it the F.H.E.W.R.S, (pronounced fewers);
Fermentation Heat Exchange Water Reticulation System
Better acronyms are welcome
Obviously, I was bored. Enjoy.
First draft. The bottom tub holds about 20L of water at 18C, courtesy of a 100W aquarium pump. This water is pumped to the top fermenter warmer via the green garden hose. The water is then returned to the bottom vessel via the clear tubing to be warmed up again.
I've coloured the water routes (Pumpy style :beerbang: ) to further illustrate the engineering involved.
Red is the warm water heading north to keep the top fermenter at 18C
Blue is the returning cooler water
Yellow is the Oh-my-God-she's-gonna-blow overflow line
The puddle area to the bottom-left is intentional.
This is a close-up of the business-end of the process. Barely visible is the aquarium pump and heater. The clear return hose shows the cooled water returning to the reservoir.
Notice the carefully drilled offset overflow and backflow pipes. I had to pull out the laser sights for this job. Also note the bucket of Iodophor watching everything in the background. It has nothing to do with this story.
Nice close-up of the Oh-my-God-she's-gonna-blow overflow vessel. Note the late addition of yet another return pipeline from the red bucket to the main tub (reused the bit of rubber tube taken from my stainless braid).
The final incarnation, with the lower vessel at 17C and the top at 16.7C. This morning, both were at 19C...potential disaster avoided...pretty happy.
Well, that was fun.... now back to work
