Width of heat tape on sanke keg fermenter?

[JohnnyGunn]

So I'm converting a Guinness sanke into a fermenter. I have everything under control except for the heating. I live in Alberta and my basement is cool all year long, especially in winter so I need to maintain temps via heating, more often than cooling. I'll be going the heat tape route.

Now my issue is I’d like to use the 12” heat tape, but because of the ridges in a keg, I doubt that would work (unless someone here can prove me wrong!). So, my other option is to use the 4” stuff around the center of the keg in between the 2 ridges, but will that cause issues like creating overheating in one spot or bringing up the temp too slowly?

I would really prefer the larger surface area of the 12” heat tape, even if it doesn’t encircle the keg (like the fermwrap). Unless someone can reassure me that the narrower heat tape around my fermenter won’t cause problems.

Any solutions or suggestions are welcome!

Cheers.

 

[ZombieCat]

I used 12" heat tape on my 1/4 bbl slim sanke. The two electrical connectors sit just perfect outside the ridges of the center of the keg. I also used a piece of reflectix bubble insulation slight taller (probably 15") as shield for the heat tape. It heats just fine for me even though the heat tape is not pressed firmly against the keg wall.

My fermenter is in the chest freezer right now so I cant get a good pic of it but I will try if you need to see it.

 

[JohnnyGunn]

Hate to do this to you @ZombieCat...but when you get a chance, could you fire me off a pic of your setup?

I guess if you put a "jacket" on the sanke, it would direct all that heat to the right place.

Right on1 Thanks!

 

[ZombieCat]

No problem on the pics. They are not the best but hopefully they will help. If not, I can get some better ones in a week or so once the fermenter is empty and I pull it out of the freezer.

Jacket and redirecting the heat is exactly what I was thinking when I used the bubble insulation. I did have a small space heater in the freezer before this but I find for my setup this works a lot better. The blue bands are just some big arse rubber bands. They are not tight at all but definitely keep the heater from slipping down.

 

[JohnnyGunn]

Wow! Thanks for the speedy reply...those pics are perfect! Looks like I'm going with the 12" heat tape.

Beautiful setup you have there! I like those tri-clovers.

Is cleaning your sanke tough to do with the small opening? I was going to cut out a hole in the top and put in a corny lid with some mods on my keg fermenters, just to make cleaning/sanitizing easier, maybe get my arm partially inside or a brush if needed. You have any issues? Anything you would do differently?

Thanks again.

 

[helibrewer]

You may have sourced your wrap already, but these guys have varying width and all the DIY stuff to make your own to any length:

http://beanfarm.com/index.php?cPath=1204_1205

 

[ZombieCat]

I work from home so on slow days (like today) it is easy to do speed replies

I thought about having a 4" tri-clover ferrule put on top but the cost was getting a bit steep with the hardware and having to pay someone to do the welding. I did build a keg cleaner (plenty of examples on the site) to handle cleaning this and the sanke kegs I use in my kegerator. I cant say how well it works because this is the first run of the fermenter so I have only cleaned it when it was semi-clean. I am not too worried about the keg cleaner not doing its job, it sprays water everywhere.

I have had no issues with it so far which surprised me being the first time I used it. Taking samples is so easy now compared to my better bottle carboy. As for doing things different, there are a lot cheaper ways to using a sanke as a fermenter and if I hadn't gotten a Christmas bonus I would have gone that route. Since I had the money, I could not resist all the shiny tri-clove fittings

As helibrewer pointed out, it is easy to source and dyi the heat tape stuff. Mine is a FermWrap. Had I done my researching I could have saved a little money going the DYI route.