Splish Splash

It’s ready for a test drive. The conical fermenter is assembled and in place, ready to make some delicious beer with the convenience of a commercial brewery. The last part needed was a clean-in-place system. Since my fermenter is so challenging to get in and out of its mounted position in my cabinet, I need a way to clean and sanitize it without taking it out for scrubbing or shaking. The solution is a system that vigorously sprays the inside of the fermenter. I fiddled around with a homemade apparatus, but quickly abandoned it for something more reliable. I got my hands on a rotating spray ball from Brewer’s Hardware. This fitting has a ball with biased slots. The slots spray fluid from the ball and are configured so the flowing fluid rotates the ball, cleaning the tank wall.

Sump Pump in a bucket with a 3/4″ outlet hose and a 1-1/4″ return tube from the tank.

I tried attaching the spray ball to a few small pumps including my Chugger pump, but the flow rate wasn’t sufficient. The ball barely sprayed and didn’t spin at all. I had to get a high volume, intermediate pressure sump pump from Harbor Freight. I mounted the spray ball in the lid of my fermenter along with a check valve to prevent negative gauge pressure in the tank during draining, and I gave it a test. Watching it from the outside is important and useful, but it’s a little dull. I decided to get a better view of the action with my GoPro – if only for entertainment purposes.

Once it was working, I realized that I have no planned additions to the fermenter for a few years. Thus, it was time to mount it in the cabinet! It was tricky, but once I figured out how to slip the collar in place it was a piece of cake.

Conical fermenter mounted in cabinet with running CIP system.

Now it just needs some wort, yeast, and a little time.

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