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Solutions for Heating Conicals?

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  • Solutions for Heating Conicals?

    I've previously worked in a brewery where we had to heat fermenters in the winter, and we had to cobble together a system that involved a heated glycol loop running in parallel, with manual valves on each fermenter to switch from hot to cold. It worked, but was far from ideal.

    Now that I'm setting up another brewery (with 7 and 15 bbl jacketed conicals), I'm trying to leave myself a more elegant "out" in case winter rolls around and we have to do something similar. Anyone out there have a proven solution for both heating and cooling conicals?

    Some things I'm considering:
    1. Use only FVs with dual-zone jackets and dedicate one hot and one cold. This would reduce the effectiveness of the jackets, and would probably also require applying heat to the cone and therefore yeast, to avoid stratification. I'm also not sure what to use for the working fluid on the hot side; water and/or glycol could grow mold and who knows what else, but obviously it needs to be food safe, so bleach is out. Maybe an ethanol solution?
    2. Heat the outside of the tanks with something like an electric blanket. Inefficient, since we'd be heating the glycol in the jacket, then the beer, but electric heat is pretty cheap.
    3. Fabricate some sort of SS coil that could be suspended from a top port. Obvious cleaning and contamination concerns, plus the working fluid issues as in #1.
    4. Just give in and heat the building. If it can be done economically, this is obviously the best solution, but I don't want to assume.


    Any feedback from those more experienced in brewing in the cold would be appreciated.
    Sent from my Microsoft Bob

    Beer is like porn. You can buy it, but it's more fun to make your own.
    seanterrill.com/category/brewing | twomilebrewing.com

  • #2
    Hey Sean, I know we discussed this a little before over at AHA, but what I have done is to splice a simple male hose outlet w/shut off into the glycol lines. Then I took a plastic conical with heat wraps on it and insulation and using a march pump I was able to recirc 80 degree water through the jacket.

    Problem is you lose a little glycol (I drained what I could into a bucket) and it is a little bit of a PITA but I was able to raise a 30 bbl fermentor that cold crashed to 45 degrees because of a defective valve to 70 degrees over night.

    I only have this spliced into one of my fermentors but when we do our next buildout I am going to have this option spliced into all of thhem.

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    • #3
      someone also suggested filling an empty fv with hot water, turn off glycol compressor, but leave glycol pump on and recirculate through hot fv and the one you want to warm.
      This works well provided you have an empty tank.

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      • #4
        We have done the trick with turning off the compressor and using a tank with hot water. I also found that if I just let the chiller run with that compressor off the action of the pump will heat the glycol and the reservoir naturally and I can use that to manage my temps.

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