Kegging, SS Brew Bucket & FTS

[Darren Wood]

So I'm hatching a plan which means I can have temperature controlled fermentation and kegging but only need one fridge! Would be keen to know if you guys think it could work..

Equipment
- Large(ish) fridge (can currently hold two 30L fermenters stacked)
- SS Brew Bucket (http://www.ssbrewtech.com/products/brewbucket)
- FTS for brew bucket (http://www.ssbrewtech.com/products/ftss-temp-control-for-7-gallon-b...)
- 2 corny kegs (and all the other malarky, probably from brewcraft)

The idea is to have the fridge hold the kegs at a good 3-5°C and also a bucket of water which will feed the FTS which will keep my fermentation (ales) at the correct temp.

Yes, this probably isn't the cheapest option, but it is by far the most SPACE saving option I've come up with...

Thoughts, comments, suggestions?

[Peter Smith]

I have tried to ferment 2 diff beers in 2 carboys in same fridge, bottom line is you find it difficult to control 2 diff yeasts at the same time...  gave up got more fridges but space was not really an issue for me

[Darren Wood]

I've never actually fermented two at once – never had the time to do a double brew :)

[Peter Smith]

You could also consider this  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hb19djScvZY

couple of these attached to the side of the brew bucket with heat transfer paste etc

seen it done works at these volumes

[Darren Wood]

wow–that's an interesting idea!

[Peter Smith]

I saw a 50L with 3 of these and he could hold 9C in summer,   I think he was in a shaded garage but his ambient must have been mid 20'x produces a lot of condensation on external stainless 

[Nathan]

Wouldn't that have HUGE spatial differences in temp?.......My job is to calibrate temp measuring equipment and 100% of the liquid baths we use to reach our target temps(-20....+140) are stirred/overflowed to ensure that ALL the media is within some very tight spatial uniformity (+/- 0.01 deg). I would imagine a unstirred "bucket" with peltier units slammed on the side would show some wild differences in temp across the media(wort)....

You would be better off with the old fashioned stc-1000+fridge+heat pad and possibly a fan inside given enough time this would reach a stable equilibration(24-36 hours at the most). I have proven this in out laboratory.

[Sam DT]

I definitely get a lot of stratification when I'm using my immersion chiller and get lazy on the stirring but over time you'd get a fair amount of evening out I'd imagine. If you heat from the bottom and cool from the top convection should keep things relatively in check.

[Nathan]

I still believe that if you have something thats is actually connected either directly or indirectly to the media(wort) then you need to somehow "stir" the wort to get a reasonable spatial temperature spread.......Sure it will reach a fairly stable temp spatial over time but that peltier idea is just plain stupid in my view as once your temp sensor/contoller tells the peltier unit to turn what do you think is gonna happen?......My guess is that the wort thats closest to the unit will prob freeze and the wort the furtherest away from the peltier wont feel any effect for a LONG time UNLESS your wort is stirred. That cant be good for fermenting wort?

Hence why I'm advocating for a STC-1000,fridge and heat pad as niether the fridge nor heat pad are connected to the wort or wort holder(FV).

[Sam DT]

Yeah small cold spots wouldn't be ideal & as you say peltiers seem like a difficult way to solve a simple problem - bit of geeking it up fun tho I'm sure.

Totally agreed on the fridge, STC, pad, fan setup - that's what I run - with some tricky custom shelving I can get up to four fermenters at once.

The most I've done is three lagers, same yeast, same fermenters started 24 hours after each other - still ended up with a couple of degrees difference but I'd put that mainly down to yeast activity and how far through the fermentation cycle each fermenter was. If I'm fermenting a week apart I usually tag my probe to the side of the beer that's earliest in its fermentation cycle.

[Crusader-Rob]

I'd go even further to say, that its still difficult to ferment to beer similarly, as the temp can very up to 2 degrees lower than the fv above. (this is the temp swing I've seen in mine)

[Sam DT]

I've been mulling putting something like this together for a while too.

Thinking of using an old keg as the fermenter, strapping a heat mat to the bottom and running copper coil around the outside hooked up to mains water with an NC solenoid hose valve and a good wrap of insulation around the outside.

Then run them off an STC-1000 using a 12v plug pack to supply the solenoid valve.

The tap water in Chch is quite cold year round and we don't have water rates (to speak of) so should easily hold a good range of ale fermentation temps but would probably need to set up a coolant loop like you've described above for lagers / if it uses a silly amount of water...

[Peter Smith]

see if you can get one of the old guiness cold cooling units, they are basically a fridge compressor cooling 5L of water to 2C with a stainless coil in the water.......

poor mans glycool, just another piece of crappola I have hidden under the house......