1 bbl (40 gallon) conical fermenter and freezer conversion

Here's some pics of a 1 bbl conical fermenter from Stout Tanks and Kettles (40 gallons total capacity) and the conversion of a 20.5 cf upright freezer from Lowe's. Stout has a diagram of how this conical fits inside the freezer here.  I really don't see the need for the 3/4" plywood on the floor yet.  I'm a big guy, and I got inside the freezer and stood on my heels and toes in every spot I could, and the floor never seemed to be affected.  I think it'll be ok without.  I hope to put this fermenter to the test very soon.

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Priscilla and I spent about 3 or 4 hours total converting the freezer to hold the fermenter.  We unscrewed all the screws on the outside of the door panel and removed it.  The gasket comes off with the panel. We decided to glue the gasket back in place, and this was a pain, especially since we did it without taking the whole door off the freezer first.  We tried using clamps to hold it in place, which didn't work well, so we ended up carefully taping it in place and letting it dry until the next day.  The glue held well, but we ended up deciding that we really didn't need to glue the gasket on to begin with. You can just as easily cut around the outside edge of the door panel, so that you end up with an approximately 1" strip of door panel just to make use of the screw holes.  Using this will hold the gasket in place just fine.  Next, we glued a piece of 3/4" insulation board to the inside of the door and put cold weather aluminum tape across, from top to bottom.

The freezer and a heat belt designed for a 30 gallon drum are both plugged into a Ranco 2-stage temperature controller, and the temperature probe from the Ranco is plugged into a sanitary thermowell from GW Kent. In case you're looking at this and thinking about a similar setup, you might want to consider a less powerful heat belt. I haven't put this to the test yet, but I suspect the heat belt pictured needs to be seriously downgraded.  More on that later after I'm able to test it out.

the gas manifold

The gas manifold is finally complete. I added a few pics to the Bluto 555 combustion gallery.  I sized the main line at 1-1/4" to facilitate potentially all five burners operating at full blast simultaneously.

Using the propane burners I have (175k btu/hour each), that would require the main manifold (which is just over 10 feet long) and supply line to be able to handle up to 875k btus/hour).  Consulting the engineering toolbox, I can have a run of up to 40' of 1-1/4" pipe and still have a capacity of 900k btus/hour. Alternatively, if I'm using my natural gas burners (160k btu/hour each), theoretically all at the same time for a total of 800k btus/hour, the engineering toolbox natural gas piping chart says I can have up to 20' of 1-1/4" pipe for a capacity of up to 850k btus/hour.

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3/4" pipe is used for each of the individual burners, which is more than enough capacity for either 160k or 175k btus/hour.  I'm also using 12" Dormont flexible gas connectors (DOR-1675BPCF2S12) with swivels, shut-off valves and quick disconnects, which each have a capacity of 230k btus/hour.  The Dormont connectors are used in commercial kitchens to facilitate rolling equipment away from walls to clean, without having to disconnect the gas line.  They're made to withstand repeated stress and are covered with an anti-microbial pvc coating. They're expensive, but (as far as I know) they're the only gas connectors approved for repetitive flexing in a commercial environment.  The Dormont connectors allow me to easily lower and raise the burners as needed, anytime.

work on the black pipe

I added some more pics to the Bluto 555 combustion gallery showing the process of putting thread compound on all the black pipe, tightening everything down in the proper configurations, cleaning it all up, and putting a couple of coats of high temperature/rust prevention paint on.  Up to this point, I've always had the pipes loosely configured in case I realized I needed to make a change, but that realization hasn't come, and now it's approaching the time to finally light this thing up.

I'm waiting on two more flexible connectors from Dormont, and once I have those installed, I'll post a pic of the entire gas manifold with a bit more explanation about the manifold.

thermometer calibration

My good buddy and fellow homebrewer Curt loaned me his very precise mercury thermometer a while back, and I attempted to calibrate the 5 Blichmann thermometers using water in a pot on the stove.  This was no problem with the water settled at room temperature and comparing the mercury thermometer to the Blichmanns. four of the five were off by either 1F or .5F, and I was able to dial them in nicely at 69F.  However, when I heated the water to boiling, the Blichmanns were way off.  I can't remember exactly how much off they were, but  I seem to recall as much as 5 or maybe 7 degrees.  I tried to let the water cool down to 152F (a midpoint temperature between the ranges favored by alpha amylase enzymes and beta amylase enzymes during mashing) and calibrate them  at that point, but I never could hold the water right at 152 long enough to do the calibration... too small a volume of water and no ability to fine tune the heat applied to it.

Isotemp Immersion Circulator

Later, as I was telling Curt about my experience, he said he had just the thing in his lab, and here's a pic of his assistant showing me how to set up their Fisher Scientific Isotemp Immersion Circulator.  It took about 20 minutes or so to get the constantly recirculating water temp up to 152F, but once it was there, it held the temp steady as long as I needed it.  Calibrating to 152 was really easy this way, and that has me thinking about how I can build my own do-it-yourself style Isotemp Immersion Circulator.

the burner apparatus

I added a few pics to the Frame Build Phase II gallery to show a little better how - what we call - the sliding burner apparatus works. This uses a quick position cam handle from McMaster Carr to make lowering and raising the burner a a fairly quick and easy 2-hand process. Being able to adjust the burner's height was necessary to accommodate the tippy dump swing radius, but it's also helpful to be able to control how the particular flame your getting hits the kettle.

upper position

lower position

There are a few more pics of the burner apparatus in the Frame Phase II gallery. You may notice the black piping is missing a couple of end caps. Putting goop on the threads, tightening the pipes down, and putting the black paint on them is one of the very last things I'll do prior to the first test batch, so the burners are just loosely assembled right now.

lots of stainless bolts, washers, nuts, screws needed

An accumulation of different sizes of bolts, washers, nuts, thumb screws, self-tapping screws, etc. just sort of happened during the building of the Bluto 555. This is just what I have left over. Lots of trips to the local bolt and screw store.

custom fittings for Blichmann sight glasses and thermometers

With 1-1/2" triclamp style butt weld ferrules added to the walls of the kettles at every hole, I needed some custom fittings to get the thermometers and sight glasses attached to the kettles again:

• for the thermometers, a standard 1-1/2" TC endcap drilled/tapped for 1/2-20 thread (this was simple)
• for the sight glasses, a custom machined fitting (all one piece, no welding, drawing here), drilled and tapped for a straight thread that is a little tighter than 1/4" npt (I didn't make a note of the specific thread, but can find out if someone really wants to know)

Since these are threaded, they're not sanitary, but the benefit is the ease with which they can be removed for thorough cleaning and sanitization, and then reattached (as opposed to having to having to practically crawl inside the kettles to remove/reattach the originals. Later, I'll post about the fittings for the main ports and the return ports because I'm actually still working on those.