Note: This is part two of our conical series. For part one, click here.
You've been scrimping and saving all year, or it's your birthday, or maybe you were a good boy (or girl) and Santa hooked you up. Whatever the situation, you've managed to raise some funds for new brewery equipment. You've been eyeing those shiny, beautiful hunks of stainless for ages. You've lurked in the forums and heard the pros and cons of shelling out that much scratch and have decided to ignore the naysayers. You've made up your mind.
It's time for a conical.
The question is, which conical is going to be the right one for you and your brewery? I'll work you through the thinking I've gone through during this process and show you how I have come to the decision I have made for On The Loose.
You Have Issues:
The first two issues, as I see it, are: What size? and What will I be using to control temperature? From there, issues such as features, fittings, cost, dimensions and country of origin may cause you to swing allegiances many times throughout the process.
Today we will be looking at the question of temperature control for your fermenter.
It's Getting Hot In Here....
If you have reached the stage in your homebrewing career where you are considering a conical, you probably are already familiar with the importance of fermentation temperature control on the flavor of your beer. It does you little good to ferment in a beautiful stainless conical if said conical is sitting in your garage and its 100 degrees outside. You need to keep those little yeasties cool if you don't enjoy the taste of fusel alcohols and ethyl acetate in your beer!
The lowest tech/cost option for fermentation temperature control is a cool basement or room in your house. If you have a basement that stays at about 66-68 degrees throughout the day with little to no temperature fluctuation then you are in luck! Stick you conical down there and count yourself lucky.
If you are like me, though, your basement (if you have one) will be hotter during the day and cooler at night. The way to combat this is the addition of simple heating or cooling elements. During the hot Colorado summers, I immerse my carboys in rubbermaid tubs full of water. The extra thermal mass insulates the fermenting wort from the large temperature change between day and night and I can add ice cubes if necessary to keep my fermentation temperature down on those hot days. While I have never tried it, other brewers claim great success with draping your fermenter in a wet t-shirt and running a fan on it to induce evaporative cooling.
The next level of control seems to be some sort of integrated peltier cooler. MoreBeer's heated and cooled and ultimate conicals come with a layer of insulation and a cooler built onto the conical. Stout tanks also sell a peltier cooler kit that will work with their (and possibly others') conicals. My issue with these types of coolers is that they seem to be able to draw down the temperature of your conical by, at most, 20 degrees below ambient. That just won't cut it in my 100+ degree garage in mid-summer. Which brings us to:
A fridge/freezer or fermentation chamber/cold box. From my research this seems to make the most sense as a home for your new conical. Either method should be paired with a good quality temperature control unit. If you are electrically inept like myself, try the awesome digital controllers from Johnson and Ranco.
Upright freezers seem to rule over chest freezers (less work for the pump) and refrigerators (more insulation) if you are going for the single cold box approach. The advantages of the freezer are that you have one unit that can be placed just about anywhere you have the space and then moved if life or brewing conditions change. Disadvantages are that you may end up buying more and more freezers over time as your brewery grows. (What if you want a second conical?)
A cold box is basically an insulated box cooled usually by an air conditioning unit. The model I've most often seen is some sort of variation on Jamil Zainasheff's Brewshed. Pretty slick! You can also make smaller units that use a dorm fridge or other cooling unit to cool he space. However, if you are going to put in the time, effort and money to build out a cold box, why not create some extra space to store kegs and bottles? Advantages: You are basically creating your own walk-in cooler and can build it out to whatever size you feel you need. Disadvantages: You are essentially creating a fixed space that is immovable unless you tear it down.
There are other solutions, such as immersion coils and full-blown glycol systems for your conicals that can be controlled online from your Ipad. This is the beauty of homebrewing. You can make it as complicated and as geeky as you like. But I'm of the mind that simpler is better. Right now, for On The Loose, we are sticking with the fridge/freezer or cold box build-out depending on how much of the garage I can take over. =)
That's it for this week, next up we will look at some of the other features you will want to consider before you pull the trigger on your new conical!!
The lowest tech/cost option for fermentation temperature control is a cool basement or room in your house. If you have a basement that stays at about 66-68 degrees throughout the day with little to no temperature fluctuation then you are in luck! Stick you conical down there and count yourself lucky.
If you are like me, though, your basement (if you have one) will be hotter during the day and cooler at night. The way to combat this is the addition of simple heating or cooling elements. During the hot Colorado summers, I immerse my carboys in rubbermaid tubs full of water. The extra thermal mass insulates the fermenting wort from the large temperature change between day and night and I can add ice cubes if necessary to keep my fermentation temperature down on those hot days. While I have never tried it, other brewers claim great success with draping your fermenter in a wet t-shirt and running a fan on it to induce evaporative cooling.
The next level of control seems to be some sort of integrated peltier cooler. MoreBeer's heated and cooled and ultimate conicals come with a layer of insulation and a cooler built onto the conical. Stout tanks also sell a peltier cooler kit that will work with their (and possibly others') conicals. My issue with these types of coolers is that they seem to be able to draw down the temperature of your conical by, at most, 20 degrees below ambient. That just won't cut it in my 100+ degree garage in mid-summer. Which brings us to:
A fridge/freezer or fermentation chamber/cold box. From my research this seems to make the most sense as a home for your new conical. Either method should be paired with a good quality temperature control unit. If you are electrically inept like myself, try the awesome digital controllers from Johnson and Ranco.
Upright freezers seem to rule over chest freezers (less work for the pump) and refrigerators (more insulation) if you are going for the single cold box approach. The advantages of the freezer are that you have one unit that can be placed just about anywhere you have the space and then moved if life or brewing conditions change. Disadvantages are that you may end up buying more and more freezers over time as your brewery grows. (What if you want a second conical?)
A cold box is basically an insulated box cooled usually by an air conditioning unit. The model I've most often seen is some sort of variation on Jamil Zainasheff's Brewshed. Pretty slick! You can also make smaller units that use a dorm fridge or other cooling unit to cool he space. However, if you are going to put in the time, effort and money to build out a cold box, why not create some extra space to store kegs and bottles? Advantages: You are basically creating your own walk-in cooler and can build it out to whatever size you feel you need. Disadvantages: You are essentially creating a fixed space that is immovable unless you tear it down.
There are other solutions, such as immersion coils and full-blown glycol systems for your conicals that can be controlled online from your Ipad. This is the beauty of homebrewing. You can make it as complicated and as geeky as you like. But I'm of the mind that simpler is better. Right now, for On The Loose, we are sticking with the fridge/freezer or cold box build-out depending on how much of the garage I can take over. =)
That's it for this week, next up we will look at some of the other features you will want to consider before you pull the trigger on your new conical!!
No comments:
Post a Comment