I was wondering if anyone has experience with the kind of brewery I am trying to build. I could really use some advice and help.
This is how I planned my setup:
I have a 1150L fermenter with cooling jacket. Because I need both cooling and heating ( summer - winter) I planned on using a chiller and a heating coil in a vessel filled with water / water+glycol . In the same vessel I have a coil that is connected via a pump to the fermenters jacket. The pump would be always on.
Is this solution ok or should I do it in another way? Any advice?
Also, where should I place which sensor? My plan was to have both the “beer” and “fridge” sensors in the fermenter thermowell, that means in the actual beer. Then I would run the BrewPi in fridge constant mode.
What about PID settings? Any advice on what values I should start with? I don’t know if I can tune it with CHR or Ziegler Nichols, as the temperature sinks veeeery slowly.
Control two pumps that each can pump warm/cool water through the jacket
You’ll only need a beer sensor in the fermenter thermowell. In absence of a fridge sensor, the beer sensor will be used as fridge temp as well. Set your beer-to-fridge PID to all zeros so fridge setpoint matches beer setpoint.
The PID settings is a bit of trial and error. My small scale setup with glycol at home is very quick to cool. You’ll want a large glycol reservoir though to have some buffer. And you definitely want to use a liquid cooler/ beer line cooler /glycol chiller and not a fridge or freezer.
If you want to do cold crashing, your coolant should be around 2 degrees, maybe even lower.
For heating, I’m guessing 30 degrees? I don’t use warm water for heating.
Because both liquids will share the same jacket, they will mix. So you’ll have to have the same liquid in both.
Probably water with a bit of glycol to prevent freezing in the cool side of things.