Single jacketed fermenters vs Dual jacked fermenters

[Proviance]

How important is having 2 zones on a 30bbl fermentor?

[TGTimm]

If your castback temp is acceptable for pitching, and you never intend to make partial batches, a single, mid-cylinder cone should be fine. Using the cone or bottom jacket alone in a full ferm usually results in stratification.

[gitchegumee]

That being said...

Timm is right, but if you wish to repitch, then you should have two jackets; one up on the cylinder and one down on the cone. The cone is where you want your fresh yeast to remain cold and happily dormant. The importance of two separate controllers and two separate solenoids for the two separate zones is not as well sold to me. If you use dried yeast, you may be able to get away with one jacket. Your process will define what you need. Good luck!

[TGTimm]

I'll second Phillip on all he wrote. About the only time we use the cone jacket is when crashing so we can re-pitch some healthy yeast. We don't have controllers or solenoid valves on the cone jackets, just a manual ball valve splitting off after the solenoid valve for the middle (main) jacket (on the ferms that have three jackets).