# Fully flooded font best ways to glycol



## mrsupraboy (17/2/16)

So guys not sure if there are any cheap glycol systems or anything tho whats the cheapeast ways or the best ways to fully frost a font.

I know some people put a freezer next to it with glycol and pump and a bucket. What other ways are there


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## spog (17/2/16)

Some here have used air recirculation,using a 12 volt fan ( internally ) and ducting to push the chilled air into the font, others have used what is known as a " font snake " which is a commercially retailed version of the above.
As I have read the success rate in using air circulation is dependent on the cycling = how often it is controlled to operate or not.
Cheers.

And DO NOT try and cheap it by using anything other than recommended chilling chemicals for your beer cooling/chilling.


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## Rocker1986 (17/2/16)

I'll follow this thread because I'm seriously thinking about investing in a flooded font for my kegerator due to it being outside (although in the current weather it wouldn't matter where it was, the damn thing would still be warm). I'm currently using a normal font with a font snake but it's just not cutting it in the summer heat.

Funds are not a problem, so not interested in trying to cut corners to make it cheaper or anything. What would be the easiest way to run a glycol system in a kegerator set up?


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## Danscraftbeer (17/2/16)

Investigate before spending your $$$$$. Jealous of the comment "Funds are not a problem". Ya won tatts? You opening a pub?


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## Rocker1986 (17/2/16)

Yes I'm not planning on doing anything at this stage, more just researching options and will hopefully set it up over the winter to be ready for next summer.

:lol: Not quite. I'm single, no kids, living at home at the moment to save as much as I can. But I'm still able to enjoy some presents to myself as well. At least by the time I am not single anymore, I will already have all this shit so I won't have to justify spending money on it. Well that's my probably misguided theory but I'm sticking to it.


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## jibba02 (17/2/16)

Kegking have a nice modular system that can be flooded.


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## jibba02 (17/2/16)

http://kegking.com.au/keg-couplers-and-keg-disconnects/font-modular.html


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## mrsupraboy (18/2/16)

jibba02 said:


> Kegking have a nice modular system that can be flooded.


Yeh i bought the cobra font. 

I was considering buying a really small medical freezer. And doing the bucket and glycol with the pump.


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## mckenry (18/2/16)

None of the answers above will give you 'fully frosted font'. I assume by that term you mean iced up?
If so, youre going to need a freezer for your glycol and a fridge for your beer. Theres no other way to ice it up.
I sweat my 3 tap and 6 tap fonts with the following. The sweat look is pretty cool. The chrome gets cold and shows the chilled metal look due to the temp drop and beads of water appear all over the font.

I use a pond pump in a cut out 3L milk bottle inside the kegerator. 
Get the water down cold in the milk bottle reservior. The day I want to 'frost' it up, I turn the pond pump on, run it for 10 minutes or so to cool the font as much as its going to with the water at 2°C, pump out half the water and add ice to fill the reservior.
Works really well as the ice takes a long time to melt at 2°C


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## mrsupraboy (18/2/16)

Yeh i know that. Its why i was considering the medical freezer cause i know you can get them pretty small. Tho if it outways the cost or close to buying a glycol chiller i might just buy the glycol chiller. The cheapest glycol chiller i can find is around $900 from keg king


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## mckenry (18/2/16)

What kind of beers are you making that need an iced up font? Ales are best served at 7-11°C and lagers at 4-7°C according to beerandbrewer.
Personally, I like my beers at the lower end of these ranges, but any lower,by running them through iced fonts (I had a glycol chiller once - sold it for $500) is too cold.
If you're making mass market type lagers then go for it. If not, maybe try the cold water flooding before dropping $900


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## mrsupraboy (18/2/16)

Reguardless of ale or lager. I love my beers cold. Its more of a looks thing....

There is an option of putting the fan fan inside the python font. Ripping out the insulation as well as the glycol coil. Was thinking about it and just have the font sweating a tiny bit. But would prefer the glycol


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## Rocker1986 (18/2/16)

mckenry said:


> None of the answers above will give you 'fully frosted font'. I assume by that term you mean iced up?
> If so, youre going to need a freezer for your glycol and a fridge for your beer. Theres no other way to ice it up.
> I sweat my 3 tap and 6 tap fonts with the following. The sweat look is pretty cool. The chrome gets cold and shows the chilled metal look due to the temp drop and beads of water appear all over the font.
> 
> ...


This sounds like it may work for me. I'm not particularly interested in having an iced font, but I want it cold all the way through to the taps to try and minimise the foaming at the start of a pour. Do you need an actual flooded font to do this, or can it be done with just a 'normal' type font that is normally sold with kegerators? Is it just set up with a beer line running from the pump up into the font and then back down into the reservoir?


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## mckenry (18/2/16)

Rocker1986 said:


> This sounds like it may work for me. I'm not particularly interested in having an iced font, but I want it cold all the way through to the taps to try and minimise the foaming at the start of a pour. Do you need an actual flooded font to do this, or can it be done with just a 'normal' type font that is normally sold with kegerators? Is it just set up with a beer line running from the pump up into the font and then back down into the reservoir?


No it wont work with the supplied fonts. You need a proper flooded font. A flooded font will have the beer lines poking out, along with 2 brass tubes (or more depending on the number of taps. My 6 tap has 4 flooding lines). The brass tubes are the pipes for carrying the glycol or iced water.


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## Moog (18/2/16)

I'm thinking of the same type of thing, My taps sit outside the keg fridge and the lines are probably 500mm long, (outside the fridge)
It foams pretty bad then settles down, but by the time you want another beer, its doing it again....(annoying)
I thought about running copper tube next to the beer lines, up into the font and back out again, then pumping water, as mentioned


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## osprey brewday (18/2/16)

Moog said:


> I'm thinking of the same type of thing, My taps sit outside the keg fridge and the lines are probably 500mm long, (outside the fridge)
> It foams pretty bad then settles down, but by the time you want another beer, its doing it again....(annoying)
> I thought about running copper tube next to the beer lines, up into the font and back out again, then pumping water, as mentioned


Search for beer python easy to make dont need to be copper i had same problem with the foaming so flooded with water from the cooled space some days it dont condensate up the font but it still stops the foam issues.


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## Rocker1986 (18/2/16)

mckenry said:


> No it wont work with the supplied fonts. You need a proper flooded font. A flooded font will have the beer lines poking out, along with 2 brass tubes (or more depending on the number of taps. My 6 tap has 4 flooding lines). The brass tubes are the pipes for carrying the glycol or iced water.


Cool, thanks mate. I shall order myself a proper flooded font. What size of tubing goes into (or onto) the brass tubes? Guess it probably depends on the font itself really. Any recommendations for the pump? I reckon I'll just go with that iced water method, not only is it cheaper but I also don't need the thing frozen, just cold enough to alleviate the foaming issues. B)


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## mckenry (18/2/16)

It's standard brewery transfer tubing. Maybe 10mm ID? I just push it over and hose clamp it. I bought a cheapo 12v pond pump from eBay. About $15. Remember to pump the water around for a while to take the temp down as far as possible them add ice to really sweat the font.


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## Rocker1986 (18/2/16)

Sweet. I'll get the font first and have a squiz at it, then get the rest of the required items. Yep that'll be easy enough, probably switch it on when I first wake up then add the ice later a bit before I start pouring beers.


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## mrsupraboy (19/2/16)

Im thinking of getting a very small cheap fridges bar fridge. Convert it to a frezzer. Reinsulate the walls inside and do the glycol and pump and bucket thing.

I saw medical freezers are small but cost a mint


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## barls (19/2/16)

why not just buy one of the bar sized freezers?????


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## mrsupraboy (19/2/16)

There still to big. I want something small atleast a foot or 2 cubed


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## Moog (19/2/16)

I'm going to try something else.....
Rather than running pumps and water etc.....
I'll get 20mm copper tube to run from the font, back into the fridge, where it'll be bolted to a stainless steel block, to act as a heat sink.
The pipe will be lagged (outside the fridge), and the beer lines are fed through it.
No need to solder it or seal the ends, it'll just be the conduction of the cold into the pipe, which should cool the beer....
Heard it mentioned in passing on "basic brewing radio" , anyone else tried it??


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## Rocker1986 (23/2/16)

My flooded font arrived today, now just waiting on the pond pump thingy, which is coming from Hong Kong so it could be here in days or months :lol:. The lines that run from the bottom of it to the taps are quite large in diameter compared to the barbs on the shanks in my existing set up, so hopefully with a bit of heat and stretching and keg lube I can get the beer lines on them easily enough. Then of course there is the piece of tubing that runs up inside it which carries the ice water or glycol. The thing is quite heavy, so that would suggest that its insulation is pretty decent and I am guessing it is probably double walled as well.

Is this like what yours are like mckenry?


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## Jangles (9/9/18)

Moog said:


> I'm going to try something else.....
> Rather than running pumps and water etc.....
> I'll get 20mm copper tube to run from the font, back into the fridge, where it'll be bolted to a stainless steel block, to act as a heat sink.
> The pipe will be lagged (outside the fridge), and the beer lines are fed through it.
> ...



Moog, how did yoy go with your font mate ?


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## krusty_oz (16/9/18)

I use an esky with ice and water, using a pond pump to circulate on my flooded font. Its only worth the effort for a big session. It gets a nice sweat of condensation on it. To get it to freeze up you need to use a temprite or freezer and glycol solution and be happy with the power bill. Note a freezer may not have enough cooling capacity to maintain the layer of ice on the font but might just be enough (with a sufficient sized reservoir) for a drinking session.


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## KegLand-com-au (17/9/18)

Hey guys. We sell equipment to flood fonts, we have glycol chillers and also flooded fonts and all the connections and normally we would be more than happy to sell our wares and promote them on a forum. With that said for domestic use I really am not sure flooded fonts are the way to go and I really would not recommend them for domestic use.

Certainly the initial investment is one thing and the equipment to do it is quite a bit more expensive.

The other thing is a typical medium sized flooded font will consume about 150watts of power constantly just to maintain the block of ice/font sitting above the bar. So this is a considerable cost especially if you are leving the font turned on. If you dont leave the font turned on then your glycol can eventually start growing bacteria as it warms up. Also this loss of cooling capacity also de-rates your glycol chiller so our overall capacity to chill beer becomes less too.

Then you have the issue of the water/condensation above the bar. This additional moisture has to be drained away and removed somehow.

If your glycol has not been chilled enough this can also be an issue. So if you are hooking up water bath with a pond pump and if the water ends up not being cold enough you can end up having the water actually warm your beer rather than cool it. I did see this with one customer who had a kegerator set to 0C so his kegs were quite cold but then he was pumping water up the font and the water was sitting at +6C. So he ended up warming the beer inside the font rather than cooling it.

For most domestic customers I really would recommend air cooling your font especially if you are using a kegerator to keep the kegs cold. Also insulating the font the best you can might not look as good but it makes far better practical sense than having a font frozen or condensating above the bar. Well that's my two cents.


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## Boxcar (17/9/18)

If your tower/font is located remotely (as in not on top of the keezer/kegerator) then liquid cooling is going to be a must. Otherwise, air-cooling can be done with less fuss, especially if your tower/font us "n" shaped with two channels back to the storage compartment.

Internally glycol chilled with internal insulation isn't difficult on a home-scale and can be done relatively economically using a mini fridge/freezer with infrequent or even on-demand circulation. There should be plenty of examples here in this forum and on a simple google search. Loads of ideas/implementations out there on the cheap. The use of RV plumbing winterizing glycol should also prevent any bacterial issues inside the lines - the reservoir inside the freezer section would always be cold. The outside of the font should never get cold nor show condensation in this type of setup. Cooling is applied only to the internal beer lines and optionally also to the rear of the shanks inside the font. 

0 degrees is way too cold to store kegs for any style of beer, so if the glycol lines are warmer than the beer, that's a user-created setup problem, not something that can happen by accident or unintentionally over time.


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## KegLand-com-au (21/9/18)

Boxcar said:


> If your tower/font is located remotely (as in not on top of the keezer/kegerator) then liquid cooling is going to be a must. Otherwise, air-cooling can be done with less fuss, especially if your tower/font us "n" shaped with two channels back to the storage compartment.
> 
> Internally glycol chilled with internal insulation isn't difficult on a home-scale and can be done relatively economically using a mini fridge/freezer with infrequent or even on-demand circulation. There should be plenty of examples here in this forum and on a simple google search. Loads of ideas/implementations out there on the cheap. The use of RV plumbing winterizing glycol should also prevent any bacterial issues inside the lines - the reservoir inside the freezer section would always be cold. The outside of the font should never get cold nor show condensation in this type of setup. Cooling is applied only to the internal beer lines and optionally also to the rear of the shanks inside the font.
> 
> 0 degrees is way too cold to store kegs for any style of beer, so if the glycol lines are warmer than the beer, that's a user-created setup problem, not something that can happen by accident or unintentionally over time.




Yes we would mostly agree with that. But the reality is when you set your fridge at 0C it doesnt mean your beer is at 0C which is important to remember. The important temperature is what temperature the beer ends up in your glass or your mouth.

If you set a fridge at 0C that is the temperature the compressor will turn off at. Lets say the hysterisis on the controller is set at 2C (which is quite common) this means where the probe is on the fridge will be maintained at approximately 1C (half way between 0C and 2C.)

Then you may find that your kegs closest to the door of the kegerator and further away from the chill plate can be an additional 2C higher than this typically. So even though the fridge is set at 0C the actual temp of the kegs might be closer to 3C.

The if your font is not really well chilled and the tap body itself is not that cold but the time you pour your first pot of beer the beer will then be about 1C higher than this again for that first glass. Meaning your beer will probably end up in the glass at about 4C.

Then if you do not refrigerate your glassware within 1-2 minutes your beer will warm up by another 1-1.5C approximately.

So with all that said a fridge set point of 0C can very easily end up with a beer in the glass at 5C. If you drink that beer over 20 minute period you might find by the end of the 10 minutes the pot might be several degrees higher than this.

It should also be said that the colder you store the kegs the more stable it is and the shelf life will be as a result.

So I would agree 0C is too cold for a beer that you drink in the glass but for a kegerator set temp it's not too bad.


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## KegLand-com-au (21/9/18)

Jangles said:


> Moog, how did yoy go with your font mate ?



Yes can you send photos?


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