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  • chilled fermenters vs. walk-in cooler space

    Hi folks,

    I just spent my entire sunday working out brew house floor plans, designs, etc... my partner asked a question:

    is it better to just chill the fermenters with a glycol system which allows them to live right out in the open part of the brew house, or carve out somewhat precious space in the walk in cooler and keep the fermenters cool along with other goods in the cooler?

    thought process here:

    1. - to chill the fermenters adds cost in glycol system, adds cost in that fermenters are more $$ as well.

    2. - putting the fermenters in the walk in means the walk in has to be bigger, and the cooling system for it must be much larger...but at a saving in cost of FV's

    anyone willing to share comparison figures of their projects? seems like every brewery I have visited - i see it done both ways. there must be a cost justification to do it one way or the other.

    as a bonus question - im curious how chilled fermeters work in the first place. I assume cold glycol comes in one side and exits slightly warmer out the other side. is there issue of temperature stratification within the fermenter? do you attach a pump and move the beer around to make sure there are no hot/cold spots?

    or does the rising C02 cause enough mixing that the temp stabilized by offgassing action?
    __________________
    Paul Di Napoli
    Grunt, Brewer, Idea guy
    Division Street Brewing
    pdinapoli@gmail.com

  • #2
    There seems to be some confusion here as to placing fermenters vs. placing lagering/bright beer/serving tanks. Fermenters should not go in the same cooler space dedicated for "refrigeration" temps. Even at the coldest, your lowest fermentation temperature should be 45F, which is 5 degrees higher than the "Food Danger Zone" limit that a cooler would be set below. If you're going to place the fermenters in a refrigerated space, it must be a dedicated space separate from the existing cooler, and your tanks will still need a chilled water circuit in order to control individual tank fermentation temperatures (usually, you don't have all of your tanks fermenting at exactly the same time and at the same rate).

    There is an argument over the efficiency of placing the bright beer tanks (BBTs) in a walk in cooler or just having them outside with glycol jackets. This was discussed in an other thread titled "Cooling Question: Glycol vs. Cold Room" and covers the pros & cons.

    As far as your question about temperature uniformity across a fermenter, as long as you have rapid fermentation, your tank contents are well mixed. If having small temperature variations in fermenting beer were a problem, then the 3000 bbl fermenters of the big boys would include mixers/rousers, but they don't. I think you have to start thinking more about potential contamination than uniform liquid temperature when you start talking about connecting pumps and hoses for recirculation.

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    • #3
      I have a question along these same lines. We are working toward opening a (very) small brewery and are leaning towards a fermentation room with a dedicated A/C unit. We expect to have at most 3-3BBL fermenters in there at a time with only one actively fermenting (generating heat) at a time. Are there any problems with this that I am missing other than the obvious that all our beers will have to ferment at the same temp? I guess I'm mostly concerned that we will not be able adequately control ferm temp using ambient air alone, even if we have a fan to keep the temperature even.

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      • #4
        I haven't seen a micro using anything other than individually chilled and jacketed fermenters. The big boys with, say 500 hectolitre + FVs can put them in a cold room, without being individually insulated, but individually controlled attemperation (glycol / brine / alcolhol / direct expansion ammonia) becuase the rate of heat transfer compared to the mass of fermenting wort is very small. I think that a very small vessel, say 3 - 5 hl will lose heat far too fast to the surrounding cold room atmosphere. I have worked with uninsulated 120 brl (about 200 hl) FVs, and we got very variable fermentations and end flavour / pH compared to the lagged vessels, especially in winter. When we lagged a few with simple rockwool the consistency improved dramatically.

        In other words - go for individually lagged and temperature controlled vessels

        So why have FVs in a cold room ? Well I've no personal expereince of using them but have been told they are cheaper to buy and install, cheaper to maintain - i.e. no repairs to insulation / cladding, easy access for any repairs to the tank material, and can be put in a room which is isolated totally from the external environment. Having seen the condition of a number of cold room FVs, and compared them to individually insulated / clad FVs which are free standing in the British climate (i.e. wet) they are far more hygienic. Downsides include huge energy costs if using hot cleaning, but then most if not all the cold room vessels are cleaned using cold detergents, mainly acid.
        dick

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        • #5
          If you are doing ales only has anyone run across a brewer that is not chilling their FV at all but just keeping them room temp(assuming the room temp is around 68-70 degrees)?

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          • #6
            Originally posted by gt7834a
            If you are doing ales only has anyone run across a brewer that is not chilling their FV at all but just keeping them room temp(assuming the room temp is around 68-70 degrees)?
            Not good enough. Fermentation creates heat, so if you have a room at 68-70 degrees, your actual fermentation temperature will be much higher. You'd need a room that averages in the mid to high 50's to ambiently cool a fermenter at ale temperatures.

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            • #7
              I have seen fermentations run up to the high 80's F when the temperature control failed on a fermenter.

              If you want to maintain good control over your beer, you want good temperature control. Having the ability to keep a fermenter within a tight temperature range (there will be some variation within the tank, but not great if the jackets are properly placed and the fermentation is adequately vigorous) allows you to really dial in the profiles of your beer depending on your yeast strain, whether you brew a Kolsch, a lager, an English Pale, an American IPA or a Saison. Each strain produces different characteristics at different fermentation temperatures.

              In addition it offers a greater chance to repeat a great batch of beer.

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              • #8
                I too have seen 76 degrees in just 12 hours when I forgot to open the valves on my FV jackets. For a SMALL batch (1 bbl) you could probably get away with ambient cooling provided the vessel was not insulated. Also using ambient doe snot allow you to crash cool or cols condition your beer without affecting the rest of the fermenters.

                Glycol systems are not blazingly expensive in the big scheme of things and there are lots of options for piping that can be explored to keep those costs down.

                R/
                Mike Pensinger
                General Manager/Brewmaster
                Parkway Brewing Company
                Salem, VA

                Comment


                • #9
                  I recently did a Saison, which I wanted to allow the temp to get into the 80s on to finish dry enough. The conical was allowed to free rise (we kept the glycol set for 85F, just in case), and it hit 84F using just ambient.
                  -Lyle C. Brown
                  Brewer
                  Camelot Brewing Co.

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                  • #10
                    Unless you live somewhere that the temperature is steady year-round, you will have difficulty producing consistent, batch-to-batch products with no individual control over fermentations ( ie. jacketed fermentors). Different yeast can do some pretty funky things at different temperatures. Funky and yeast are two terms that should never be paired in a sentence. Unless perhaps in relation to a halloween costume.

                    A consumers primary perception of quality in a product they regularly consume is consistency.

                    Ditto on the lmitations of sanitizing/washing options in a cold room (due to intense energy costs if using hot options). Having brite tanks in walk-ins can sometimes make sense but I've often seen this option fail because of traffic in and out of the space or doors being left open etc.

                    Pax.

                    Liam
                    Liam McKenna
                    www.yellowbellybrewery.com

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                    • #11
                      i have to confess that I think I was confusing myself when I originally posted this thread.

                      looking back (reading back) of course I cant put fermenters in a chilled walk-in - too cold - fermentation would never kick off.

                      also good to know that jacketed fermenters are the only way to keep FV's under control during primary.

                      I think i was pondering the methods of chilling beer for serving at the tap. I think I had a thought/idea that we could chill a serving tank with a glycol system and NOT need to install the vessel into a walk in

                      (save money on walk in space and cooling capacity but at the expense of having to buy a glycol system large enough to chill 4 to 7 serving tanks and chill the beer lines out to the towers at the bar)

                      sounds like brew house design pretty much mandates a glycol system almost no matter what to be able to cool the FV's,

                      and we have to build the walk-in large enough to hold tanks to serve beer from.

                      true?
                      __________________
                      Paul Di Napoli
                      Grunt, Brewer, Idea guy
                      Division Street Brewing
                      pdinapoli@gmail.com

                      Comment


                      • #12
                        You CAN find/build serving tanks (or suitable facsimiles) that are jacketed, well insulated and skinned.

                        You, will, however, even with said tanks, more than likely also need a python line system with a glycol cooling trace line on the way to dispense taps as well. We run this cooling trace from our central 1500 l glycol reservoir which is at a pretty constant -5.0oC. (which also cools our tanks, conditioning, fermentors and brite).

                        Liam
                        Liam McKenna
                        www.yellowbellybrewery.com

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