Conical in fridge or jacketed

[hs1149]

A conical is on my Christmas list. I am looking for feedback on which would be your preferred setup; conical in a ferm chamber OR a jacketed conical.

I was leaning toward the jacketed. I have already built a chiller out of an old Elkay drinking fountain that was being discarded at my office. I added an STC-1000 temp controller & use a submersible pump to circulate the water bath for my buckets and carboys. It effectively can maintain temp down to 40F. If I was to use in on a conical I would replace the submersible with a diaphragm pump in a closed loop ie no reservoir. As far as I can see, the only downside with that setup there is only cooling capacity. No way to heat. My brew room is in the basement. Temperature can drop to 64F in winter months. I guess I could through a space heating in there. Cost $1450 plus diaphragm pump

Then I got to thinking that I may get more utility from a freezer. Not only could I cool, but could heat if necessary. Additionally, I could remove the conical when not in use & use the freezer for lagering or use it to cure salumi. Conical is more economical at $950 + fridge (hopefully off craiglist).


Questions, suggestions, comments?

 

[whattheschmidt]

I have yet to do all grain and have little experience, but at the price of that jacketed one, I would go with this system:
http://brewha.co/products/3-in-1

It does remove tons of your other current equipment from the equation which could be good or bad though.

Could just be used as a jacketed conical fermenter as well though.


If heating is necessary I would go the less expensive route though...

 

[hs1149]

I have yet to do all grain and have little experience, but at the price of that jacketed one, I would go with this system:
http://brewha.co/products/3-in-1

Nifty. first I've seen of that one. If I was starting from scratch that would be a nice option. All of my equipment is in place. Just made the switch from a 3 vessel single tier natural gas system with direct fired MLT to the eHERMs system below. Brewed first beer on system yesterday.

My preference is a conical with all tri-clam fittings like brewers hardware equipment.

 

[sandyeggoxj]

I think jacketed conical is the way to go. I have a brewhemoth with immersion chiller to control the temp. I was toying around with building a jacket for it. I have a tig welder. Might as well! Less to clean.

A conical with sanitary fittings will never need to move and a suffcient chiller can cool it. It takes up way less space. And then you can build a small cip system to clean and sanitize it with little manual labor. Sounds wonderful, eh?does cost a little bit of cash upfront, but the benefit is non monetary in terms of space and time.

 

[dmcman73]

Not sure if you seen these conicals, but check them out: http://www.ssbrewtech.com/ They also have an immersion type chiller, I have their 7 gallon Conical along with their FTSS chiller and it works great. I hooked up the chiller to this aquarium chiller: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Active-Aqua...er-Aquarium-eco-plus-chill-king-/271693367195 and it works awesome. You can use the aquarium chiller to chill a cooler full of water and attach multiple conicals to it. I think on my next brew day I am going to try using the aquarium chiller as a re chiller to drop the water temp a bit before going into my CFC.

 

[Yooper]

If I had the money, a jacketed would be the way to go. And with casters, so you can move it where and when you need for packaging or to dump trub. Trying to crawl into a fridge to harvest yeast or dump trub wouldn't be my preferred way to do it. I'd love to have a couple of conicals, but I'm in the "bucket budget" level.

 

[dmcman73]

If I had the money, a jacketed would be the way to go. And with casters, so you can move it where and when you need for packaging or to dump trub. Trying to crawl into a fridge to harvest yeast or dump trub wouldn't be my preferred way to do it. I'd love to have a couple of conicals, but I'm in the "bucket budget" level.

the immersion chillers are great alternative and are not that hard to clean/sanitize. I used mine last brew and when it was done after a month and a half in the fermentor, I took the immersion off the lid, threw it into a bucket of hot water and PBW and let that soak while I cleaned the conical and all the fittings. After all that, took it out of the soak, rinsed it and I was done.

 

[hs1149]

I think jacketed conical is the way to go. I have a brewhemoth with immersion chiller to control the temp. I was toying around with building a jacket for it. I have a tig welder. Might as well! Less to clean.

sandyeggoxj, gotta love the can do / DYI attitude. I bought a MIG welder just to build my single tier stand. It has come in handy on many occasions since.

A conical with sanitary fittings will never need to move and a suffcient chiller can cool it. It takes up way less space. And then you can build a small cip system to clean and sanitize it with little manual labor. Sounds wonderful, eh?does cost a little bit of cash upfront, but the benefit is non monetary in terms of space and time.

The drinkfountain chiller has the capacity to cool 1.8gallons/per hour so I should have enough capacity. My keg and carboy washer can easily be repurposed for the CIP. Space is an issue with my brew room at ~12'x7'. Opposite the stainless table is a double stainless sink with drain boards. . It is a tight space, but I like to refer to it as effecient. I am not sure how much liquid the BrewersHardware conical holds in the jacket, but it would be nice IMO to avoid having a reservoir for the coolant.

 

[hs1149]

Not sure if you seen these conicals, but check them out: http://www.ssbrewtech.com/ They also have an immersion type chiller, I have their 7 gallon Conical along with their FTSS chiller and it works great. I hooked up the chiller to this aquarium chiller: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Active-Aqua...er-Aquarium-eco-plus-chill-king-/271693367195 and it works awesome. You can use the aquarium chiller to chill a cooler full of water and attach multiple conicals to it. I think on my next brew day I am going to try using the aquarium chiller as a re chiller to drop the water temp a bit before going into my CFC.

I am familiar with the brewtech equipment. My perferance would be not to have a big lid, large gasket with latches.

The chiller is nice. Functions like the drinking fountain I am using. Getting dual use out it with your CFC is a plus. I use a plate chiller & my detroit water is cold enough to crash wort to 62F 9 months out of the year. Most of the times I can restrict the water flow rate by a ~third & still great good results.

 

[dmcman73]

I am familiar with the brewtech equipment. My perferance would be not to have a big lid, large gasket with latches.

The chiller is nice. Functions like the drinking fountain I am using. Getting dual use out it with your CFC is a plus. I use a plate chiller & my detroit water is cold enough to crash wort to 62F 9 months out of the year. Most of the times I can restrict the water flow rate by a ~third & still great good results.

I actually prefer the large lid, I can verify that the conical is clean and if not, I can reach in and clean it. It seals very well also, never had an issue.

The water in NY is cold during the winter so I have no issues in getting temps down during the winter, it's only during the hot summer months.

 

[sandyeggoxj]

If you want to know about anything on the brewers hardware site don't email them. They are not good at that. Call them. They always answer the phone and help me out. Anywhere from tech support for the bcs to random qustions.

I buy tc stuff from them. Always nice stuff.

Diy is awesome. It got me into welding years ago when I was working on my jeep. I just got a new tig with pulse so it should be extra fun to play with thin stainless.

 

[hs1149]

According to BH the coil holds 3/4 - 1 gallon of liquid. have to see how much liquid is held inside my chiller. Based on my findings I may have to resort to some sort of reservoir to hold additional coolant.

 

[dmcman73]

According to BH the coil holds 3/4 - 1 gallon of liquid. have to see how much liquid is held inside my chiller. Based on my findings I may have to resort to some sort of reservoir to hold additional coolant.

Use a small picnic cooler as a reservoir, that's what I do. Chilled water/coolant can be held in there and pumped from it and not lose temp.

 

[thekraken]

What about a DIY, glycol chilled, plastic conical fermenter? https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f258/diy-glycol-chilled-plastic-conical-fermenters-413406/

 

[hs1149]

If I had the money, a jacketed would be the way to go. And with casters, so you can move it where and when you need for packaging or to dump trub. Trying to crawl into a fridge to harvest yeast or dump trub wouldn't be my preferred way to do it. I'd love to have a couple of conicals, but I'm in the "bucket budget" level.

Thanks for your incite. I have been saving for my next brewing investment for a while. With the funds I am trying to reduce my physical efforts when I brew & keg though "better" equipment. I had shoulder surgery earlier in the year and due to my inactivity (and laziness) during recovery, my back is not holding up well. I can feel it the day after a brew. I figured fermenting my entire 10gallon batches in one vessel and moving to keg with pressure transfers would help lighten the load. It is either the conical or bottom draining MLT & Kettle.

 

[cfrazier77]

Go jacketed, you will have no problem heating. You just need a temp controller that will activate for cooling and heating to power the pump. When you need to heat turn off the compressor on the water fountain and put in a submersible aquarium heater in the reservoir. Your pump will now send warm water to the conical.

Also, you really don't need a larger reservoir. Fill it up, connect to the conical, turn on the pump, and add more water to the reservoir as it is sent to the conical. When the level stops dropping you are done.

This is what I do with my brewhemoth. I got a steal deal on a glycol power pack, basically the exact same thing. It has a aquarium heater in it when it need to heat and it can obviously cool. The instructions on it said to top it up, connect everything, turn on the pump, and keep adding fluid until it was keeping level at the top fill indicator.

Good luck and hopefully your back feels better soon. I understand, I have degenerative disk disease in 3 disks. Not fun on the bad days.