Maintaining temperature in the fermentation tank

[beeronanisland]

Hi,

I'm no brewer, so bear with me. I'm basically trying to help someone (almost equally as clueless) who is looking at setting up a very small microbrewery abroad in a community severely needing a good, local ale.

He has two 240 litre fermenters and is investigating ways of maintaining their temperature at 20 degrees. The ambient temperature in the place he is hoping to brew fluctuates between 15 and 25 degrees throughout the year, so I guess he's going to need something that sometimes heats it, sometimes cools it.

Sorry, it's probably quite a big question, but what options does he have for this? I know he is considering building a room specifically for the fermenters and controlling the temperature of the whole room, but I'd also like to know how you guys keep larger fermenters like this at a constant temperature? (A man in a small local brewery showed me a system he'd rigged up using an aquarium heater, are there instructions to make something similar?) What would be the normal way of maintaining temperature in fermenters of this size?

Anyway, any help would be useful and a starting point for me to do a bit more research.

Many thanks

Victoria

 

[Vossy1]

Hi Victoria and welcome to the forum :thumb:

Most home brewers don't brew to those lengths but the principals behind the way they cool/heat smaller volumes is just as relevant to 240ltr fv's

For cooling the easiest way is to use a beer chiller, as used in the pub trade, and to connect the 'python' recirc to a product coil in the fv. Examples of coils can be found on this topic, examples of chillers can be found on e-bay like here


To heat the room would certainly be the easiest way to maintain an 'ambient' temperature, especially with several fv's of that size. It would be more efficient/economical if the area to be heated were as small as possible, naturally.

Keep the questions coming :thumb:

 

[evanvine]

Welcome to the Forum Vicki, it's not your old man you're on about is it?

Vossy1 beat me to the same answer, but 15 to 25 ambient temperature is not unacceptable to the yeast, especially as there will be no sharp variations.

 

[Aleman]

In my experience with fermenters of that size heating is not the problem . . . cooling is (Fermentation generates its own heat), and building a small enclosed space and filling it with CO2 (from large fermentations) is a pretty dangerous thing to do.

Ideally you need to look at a big glycol chiller with a coil of stainless steel in the FV and a temperature controller like a TC-10 or ATC 800. You can actually use either of the temperature controllers to control a heater outside of the FV . . . but be aware that you need a ventilated place to ferment in . . . asphyxiation with CO2 is not a nice way to go!

 

[jamesb]

I'll disagree with Aleman for once.

I find the heating of large vessels is harder to do with any measure of control (especially trying to eliminate large hotspots) than the cooling.

In our micro, we use large stainless coils in the wort that cold water is pumped around for cooling using a large pub product chiller (about £200+ reconditioned). I'd rather have cooling panels welded to the FVs, but I'm still trying to convince the beancounter of that one.

For heating, we use large aquarium heaters, but they do struggle in our cold building at this time of year. I'm not happy with them in this situation though, although I'm quite happy using one for homebrewing. I'm currently designing a new fermentation room where we'll heat (and/or cool) the room to 20degC rather than the fermenters.

Which micro showed you the heaters? Didn't happen to be a Dave Porter plant did it?

 

[Aleman]

Disagree away James

For all sorts of heating solutions consider Under Control they can custom make heating solutions, for any type of installation.

If I had to heat a FV then the silicone heat mats would be an ideal solution IMO Just make sure that they sit above the level of the yeast sediment at the base of the FV . . . a jacketed FV is the ideal solution of course where you pump cold water found the upper jacket, and warm water round the lower jacket. . .Or If you only have one Jacket then you pump water from a dirty big tank at whatever temp you are fermenting at round the jacket . . . but heat and cool your reservoir.

Those 316 cartridge heaters look pretty good for an insitu installation particularly the TYP9. . . I just don't like the idea of an aquarium heater being used . . . much better to source a product to do the job.

FWIW I'm thinking of having a silicone mat made to heat Connor and it will sit about 8 inches up the base of the cone and wrap around it . . . probably go with a 1W/cm density mat . . . I'll let you know costs when I get a quote.

And incidentally those energy regulators on the first page are perfect for controlling boil vigour in an electric boiler . . .just attach them to a big heat sink.

 

[jamesb]

I was looking into silicone heater mats t'other day. Fine for one FV IMHO, but for anymore than one, I think it's more cost effective to heat the room.

Mmm. Jacketed fermenters. I wish. But I've got to do the best with what I've got.

 

[beeronanisland]

Thankyou for the infrmative responses. I'm thinking that putting togethrt some sort of glycol chiller and coil is probably the way forward. But... now they're thinking more about building a cold room. I am going to make a new post about this, to maybe attract anyone who has done this, but if you guys have any experience/advice, do share.

 

[jamesb]

You'll need a cold room as well to store the beer while conditioning. DO NOT store it at ambient temperatures, or you will get keystones blowing and finings not working.