Temperature Controlled Conical - Options?

[Luxo_Aussie]

G'day All,

I'm looking to upgrade/replace my plastic fermenters with something a bit shinier & keen to know what my options are. Keen on stainless for both the yeast harvesting & reduced oxidation (not needing to rack/transfer to a secondary fessel) factors but also looking for something that will accommodate a consistent temperature control (heating+cooling) without regular interaction. I brew 21-26L batches, would need at least two conicals which can be set to different temperatures (so putting two inside a single brew fridge isn't ideal) which is why the Grainfather glycol piqued my interest

A bit of digging and it looks like SS Brewtech (Unitank or Chronical Brewmaster) or Grainfather (Conical + Glycol chiller) are good systems to investigate but are there any other options to look into?

Looking into the SS Brewtech Unitank they mention 'carbonate in-vessel' - has anyone used this to carbonate the batch prior to bottling? That would be pretty cool as opposed to having to bottle the traditional way via transfer to a bucket + bulk prime.

Cheers & Thanks!

 

[theSeekerr]

Looking into the SS Brewtech Unitank they mention 'carbonate in-vessel' - has anyone used this to carbonate the batch prior to bottling?

Not on the Brewtech Uni, but I carbonate in primary all the time on my kegmenter - usually by spunding the last few points of fermentation. This does require the vessel to take nearly 2 bar of pressure, while the Brewtech Uni seems to recommend 15 psi (roughly 1 bar) operating pressure so I assume that's where the supplied PRV is set. That would prevent achieving full carbonation by spunding alone.

15 psi operating pressure is enough to get to full carbonation at cooler temperatures, though, and with the stone it should be possible to get there quite quickly.

 

[MashBasher]

Other options as per your question:

I run a standard (but modified with TC valves and parts) 14 gal (50 litre) SS Brewtech Chronical and a 10 gal (38 litre) Brite Tank. I brew double batches (45 litres).

My workflow is to ferment and cold crash in the conical, then drop into the Brite to carbonate/clear/lager, finally push up into serving kegs/counter pressure fill into bottles (or a combination of both).

For cooling I run a Kegland G20 on the conical and brite. It does a reasonable job. I also have the FTSS heater on the conical, which allows me to keep steady temp, year round. I'm in Melbourne, so a heater makes sense for me, may not in other locations.

For me, this modular approach is ideal. I've always shied away from having a Uni, because why would I want to tie up a fermenter that's good for making beer on doing serving duties, which any old pressure vessel can do?

Take a Czech Pils schedule for example, using a Uni. (rough timings only, don't be too literal, please dear fellow readers)

2 weeks for ferment and diacetyl rest
Minimum 3 weeks on lager
Couple'a'weeks to rip through the ******* 'cos its really good! (admittedly you could bottle at this point, but you won't cos draught beer is more excellenter than bottles)

So after six to seven weeks you start the brewing cycle again. Fark!! No...

For me:
2 weeks in the conical.
Drop to Brite
Start anothery.
Lager/clarify in Brite for 2-3 weeks.
Push beer 1 up to kegs/bottles. Drink, drink, drinkity drink...
Drop beer 2 into Brite while drinking beer 1. Careful! you may spill some.
Start anothery...

You get the idea. Saves weeks.

With ales, the cycle is similar, just turns around faster.

I've run with this basic approach for 20 years. Here's a little piccy or 2:

Tidy, compact little brewery in a corner of my garage.

The brite doesn't have to be a fancy SS Brewtech one (but ****, it's nice!). A 50 litre keg does a good job too (as long as you have the fridge space). My original ( and still in use!) brite is a 40 liter Bulmers cider keg I found somewhere.

The advantage of the G20 is you need at least one less fridge, probably two (kegs, conicals and brites even at home brew scales are BIG).

The disadvantage (technically) is I can't pressure ferment. Which I have never done, have no desire to do, and consider a technique others may enjoy, but completely unnecessary for me. I have temp control instead.

Hope this provides food for thought.

Cheers and beers.

 

[Cloud Surfer]

I just set this up today. So I'm not much help to you yet. I am so looking forward to getting out of plastic fermenters and into stainless, and having temperature control has me pumped.

 

[Luxo_Aussie]

Other options as per your question:

I run a standard (but modified with TC valves and parts) 14 gal (50 litre) SS Brewtech Chronical and a 10 gal (38 litre) Brite Tank. I brew double batches (45 litres).

My workflow is to ferment and cold crash in the conical, then drop into the Brite to carbonate/clear/lager, finally push up into serving kegs/counter pressure fill into bottles (or a combination of both).

For cooling I run a Kegland G20 on the conical and brite. It does a reasonable job. I also have the FTSS heater on the conical, which allows me to keep steady temp, year round. I'm in Melbourne, so a heater makes sense for me, may not in other locations.

For me, this modular approach is ideal. I've always shied away from having a Uni, because why would I want to tie up a fermenter that's good for making beer on doing serving duties, which any old pressure vessel can do?

Take a Czech Pils schedule for example, using a Uni. (rough timings only, don't be too literal, please dear fellow readers)

2 weeks for ferment and diacetyl rest
Minimum 3 weeks on lager
Couple'a'weeks to rip through the ******* 'cos its really good! (admittedly you could bottle at this point, but you won't cos draught beer is more excellenter than bottles)

So after six to seven weeks you start the brewing cycle again. Fark!! No...

For me:
2 weeks in the conical.
Drop to Brite
Start anothery.
Lager/clarify in Brite for 2-3 weeks.
Push beer 1 up to kegs/bottles. Drink, drink, drinkity drink...
Drop beer 2 into Brite while drinking beer 1. Careful! you may spill some.
Start anothery...

You get the idea. Saves weeks.

With ales, the cycle is similar, just turns around faster.

I've run with this basic approach for 20 years. Here's a little piccy or 2:

View attachment 118955
View attachment 118956
Tidy, compact little brewery in a corner of my garage.

The brite doesn't have to be a fancy SS Brewtech one (but ****, it's nice!). A 50 litre keg does a good job too (as long as you have the fridge space). My original ( and still in use!) brite is a 40 liter Bulmers cider keg I found somewhere.

The advantage of the G20 is you need at least one less fridge, probably two (kegs, conicals and brites even at home brew scales are BIG).

The disadvantage (technically) is I can't pressure ferment. Which I have never done, have no desire to do, and consider a technique others may enjoy, but completely unnecessary for me. I have temp control instead.

Hope this provides food for thought.

Cheers and beers.

Cheers for the detailed overview, looks like a beautiful setup. Thanks for your thoughts on the uni, I hadn't been thinking about lagers but you're right - that would take up a lot of time. Alternative would be to have 2-3 uni's & then brew every one-two weeks (depending on ale/lager), but that's a substantial investment all to have one vessel do everything. I guess the capability to have more beers ongoing vs. the risks from transferring would need to be weighed up. Your tidy setup is the sort-of size I'd be looking for, just on single batch capacity.

I hadn't thought of fermenting under pressure either - more reading to get done. Cheers again for the setup.

Hope you're doing alright in Melbourne, my family is there and looking forward to restrictions (hopefully) easing sometime soon!

 

[Luxo_Aussie]

I just set this up today. So I'm not much help to you yet. I am so looking forward to getting out of plastic fermenters and into stainless, and having temperature control has me pumped.

View attachment 118958

Exactly what I was looking at, a YouTuber has released a video praising the fermenter+chiller but keen for a second opinion once you get it going.

 

[MashBasher]

Hope you're doing alright in Melbourne,

Thanks for that. Many here on the forum in Melbourne affected by the lockdown in various ways. Hopefully all putting some profitable time in to their brewing, like me. Sure you will see your family soon.

FWIW, a single vessel is one way to manage the various associated risks of transfers (i.e., by eliminating them). There are other ways as well. Closed transfers are one, and easy to accomplish.

I regularly keep beers for months at a time that have been through several transfers. Those beers keep getting better, not degrading.

 

[hezzer]

Hello Luxo
I had a GF chiller and two of their stainless conicals for a couple of years and have recently (2 months) changed to the G20 shown by MashBasher and small SS brew tech unitank. The GF chiller was twice the price of the G20, which has worked better than the GF on the 3 brews done since the changeover. I didn't need the four outputs on the GF and was also not impressed with its track record ( I had 3 in the first year). The GF conicals got blocked on a couple of heavy naked hop brews but were half the price of the SS unitank and did the job apart from that irritation. I will probably copy MashBasher's flow and put a brite tank in between the unitank and the kegs.
So, in summary, the G20's doing the cooling job slightly faster than the GF for half the money but I haven't any long term data. SS brew tech fermenters are more expensive but I feel I've got a better piece of kit. Good luck.

 

[Cloud Surfer]

Exactly what I was looking at, a YouTuber has released a video praising the fermenter+chiller but keen for a second opinion once you get it going.

David has a lot of good YouTube videos. Did you see the one where he compared the GF and SS, it was very good. It was almost solely because of that review that I bought the GF.

I’ve had my first brew in the GF almost a week now. I really like the valve system. I did a quick dump of the trub on day 3. Going to do another RIS next and I like that I can get the trub out of the way and leave the RIS in there for 8 to 10 weeks during primary, conditioning and cold crash without having to move it. I’ve even seen people bottling straight out of it.

Only issue I’m having so far is when the wort reaches my upper temp limit, which I’ve currently got set to +0.5C, it cools down so fast it races through my temp setting, which is currently at 20C, and gets down to around 19.3C. Because it’s gone below my -0.5C limit the heater comes on and warms it back to 20C again. I’m going to fiddle with the factory settings and try to stop it from cooling so fast so the heater doesn’t come on after each chill cycle.

Apart from that little quirk, I think the fermenter is excellent.

 

[Luxo_Aussie]

David has a lot of good YouTube videos. Did you see the one where he compared the GF and SS, it was very good. It was almost solely because of that review that I bought the GF.

I watched this over the weekend, super interesting comparison! The simplicity of the Grainfather is appealing and it is relatively inexpensive for what it is. Thanks for the feedback, great to hear some thoughts on the setup.

David is a very happy Grainfather customer, could he perhaps be sponsored...? I doubt it, but lucky for him if that's the case!

 

[Cloud Surfer]

I watched this over the weekend, super interesting comparison! The simplicity of the Grainfather is appealing and it is relatively inexpensive for what it is. Thanks for the feedback, great to hear some thoughts on the setup.

David is a very happy Grainfather customer, could he perhaps be sponsored...? I doubt it, but lucky for him if that's the case!

In that review he said he didn’t buy an SS when they were released, but did buy the GF when that came out.

 

[Mike Berry]

Hi all, just wanted to relay my experience with the fermenter controller.
I had a brew fermenting and hooked up to the glycol chiller, all good. While this was going on I got a message on the controller screen to say that a FIRMWARE UPDATE was available. Thinking the unit could multi task I initiated the upgrade. Two things happened: 1. The controller no longer spoke to the chiller so everything stopped 2. The controller update failed and I was left with a white screen, 21 ltrs of hot wort and a scowl on my face. After a lot of searching I found a blog where people had told of this issue before and Grainfather response was to move the unit closer to the source of wi-fi and it "should" right itself. After dragging the fermenter full of wort into the house and into my study, I sat it next to the wi-fi box for 1.5 hours and ....nothing. As I had only purchased the outfit 2 days before it is a warranty claim through Grainfather NZ. They have responded by instruction the Aussie distributor to send me a new controller for self fit. Hopefully it will be a straight swap and life can go on. It has taken a week to get to this point. I was able to transfer the beer to my old fermenter and put it in the fridge so all good there I think. So beware! Make sure the wi-fi connection is strong or do not update the firmware.

 

[philrob]

Moral of the story, Never, Never, upgrade while you have anything running.
Wait until your app/program is inactive, then do it.

 

[Mike Berry]

Moral of the story, Never, Never, upgrade while you have anything running.
Wait until your app/program is inactive, then do it.

Ha ha, we’re you listening to the conversation I had with my wife about an hour after it happened?
never again!!