SS Brewtech Brewmaster edition heating ideas

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timtoos
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SS Brewtech Brewmaster edition heating ideas

Post by timtoos » Sat Oct 29, 2016 8:05 pm

Hi all,

I have the baby SS Brewtech brewmaster conical and I would like to control both heating and cooling functions.

At the moment I use a cooler box which can be filled with hot or cold water to either heat or cool the FV. But this method involves only either heating or cooling and refilling with cold/hot water if I need different control.

I would like separate heating functions so that when I am not around a fermentation profile can be programmed and followed.

I see that SS now do an improved FFTS system with heating pad. It also looks like the pad is not available as a separate purchase without the whole FFTS set-up (which also carries a massive price tag).

The FFTS heater pad I think is 60w.

Do you guys have any tips on where to get the heater pad or anything which would be a good substitute?

PS: I do not have a fermentation fridge, nor do I have the room

Thanks in advance.

Secla
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Re: SS Brewtech Brewmaster edition heating ideas

Post by Secla » Sat Oct 29, 2016 8:46 pm

The problem with a heater pad is the change in temp of wort I think would be quite gradual
I think the best way of doing it would be a second internal coil with a hot water reservoir, email rob at malt Miller, I'm pretty sure he can sell components aswell as full kits if required

razzrockbolt
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Re: SS Brewtech Brewmaster edition heating ideas

Post by razzrockbolt » Tue Apr 17, 2018 3:13 pm

I have used two 20W heating mats that are designed for heating reptile tanks or seed germination trays. I found that they wrapped around the cone of the fermenter underneath the neoprene jacket quite nicely with the power cords coming out of the bottom of the cone. I have them connected to an inkbird temp controller. I don't have a set up for cooling.

Raising the temp isn't fast when I trialed with cold water, but once there holds quite nicely.

The heating mats come in a variety of sizes/wattages. Bigger the watts=bigger mat.

Fil
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Re: SS Brewtech Brewmaster edition heating ideas

Post by Fil » Wed Apr 18, 2018 11:04 pm

If you feel its a safe assumption that in your brewery you will need either heating OR cooling during the primary fermentation..

Then you may want to consider a shelf chiller mod, use the chiller with a python/recirculation pump to move cold water that it chills and stores in its insulated waterbath when cooling is needed, adding an inline tube heater into the recirculation flow which can be used when heating is requiered.

As your heating or cooling a mas of water within a chillers waterbath you dont want to be switching between heating and chilling so its only a reasonable option if youyr brewery is stable temp wise so you can assume the brew will require just the one type of input during primary..

I used a 400w 10mm diameter cartridge heater enclosed within 1/2" (15mm) pipe and compression plumbing fittings as a pipe heater, and a standard v1 stc1000 controller for the control and target setting. to turn on both the recirc pump and heating or cooling on, i used a ebay 4x 5v relay pcb to switch on the pump + heater or pump + cooling using a hacked phone charger to supply the 5v to power and switch the relays with the stc heating and cooling relay terminals.

Lagging and insulating the conical will help retain a lot of the yeast generated heat, to cut conical patterns for insulation layers i found it easy to tape sheets of A4 in place around the bottom cone, cut it neatly at the base and cylinder bottom before splitting to remove, and it will provide you with a pattern to cut further insulation to fit snugly.. (remember if layering insulation each new layer needs to be bigger than the last .. )
ist update for months n months..
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TheSumOfAllBeers
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Re: SS Brewtech Brewmaster edition heating ideas

Post by TheSumOfAllBeers » Thu Apr 19, 2018 11:21 am

Use soil heating cable. Easy to fit , low thermal density, easy to calculate how much you need

brewdog
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Re: SS Brewtech Brewmaster edition heating ideas

Post by brewdog » Mon Jun 25, 2018 2:12 pm

just seen this thread

brewed an ipa saturday and pitched safale s-04 yeast at 12pm bubbles by 4pm crazy by six.

noticed the temperature went up to nearly 24degrees form my prefeered 20
got out the maxi cool 110 and the python pump had been got at by mice.
So as i have the 7 gal bm chronical i attached my cold feed to the cold tap and the other into the sink and hey presto with a little bit of flow control got the temp back to 20 within 2 hours.

this led me to think
a small pump on the cold supply connected to the cold supply and the outlet into the waste, using an inkbird to control the pump why mess around with a chiller!!
I use a heatbelt connected to an inkbird 308 and this is fitted under the neoprene jacket on the conical part of the fermenter. maintains my target temp in the colder months just fine.

hope this helps.

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Normski
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Re: SS Brewtech Brewmaster edition heating ideas

Post by Normski » Mon Jun 25, 2018 3:26 pm

I have mine sat in a Hotpoint iced diamond fridge, with a 60w tube heater and an Inkbird controller.
Very simple set up. Works great. Even to crash chill.
The Doghouse Brewery (UK)

razzrockbolt
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Re: SS Brewtech Brewmaster edition heating ideas

Post by razzrockbolt » Fri Sep 07, 2018 5:30 pm

Like Brewdog above, I had a temp rise to 23 deg after the fermentation kicked off, rather than the 18 deg I wanted. A warm summer this year so the ambient temp was around 16-17 deg. I have the 17 us gall chronical so the amount of heat generated by the fermentation surprised me a bit after being used to fermenting in 5 gall plastic buckets.

I have run a length of 3/8 beer line from an aquarium pump in a water filled cooler, looped around the chronical 3 times underneath the neoprene jacket, and back to the cooler. I put 4 frozen one litre plastic bottles in the cooler that I rotate from the freezer twice a day. I use an inkbird controller for heating/cooling. Initially a temporary measure, I have found it to be an effective low tech way of cooling to keep the fermentation to the 18 deg that I want. All without cutting holes in the fermenter and installing SS coils which I would like to avoid. I can't drop the temperature below 13 deg though so no good for cold crashing. But good enough for what I need.

Cooling shouldn't be a problem come the winter in Scotland.

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