# Ice Bank Chillers



## STEVENALI (7/10/10)

Hi Chaps Heres the go, I keep seeing these ice bank chillers on EBay they sell for just under $600 I have asked the seller a few questions but never got a full answer yet,I was wondering if I stick glycol in one of these and fed it from the pump to my font then to my fridge( 4 metres) and back to the tank would it freeze my font and keep my beer lines cold,
at the moment I have the old fish pond pump in a tank of glycol and it does keep the lines cold and my font frozen but I only use the bar at the weekend and its like running a freezer with the door open(very costly power wise)has anyone got one and how does it go,


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## Crusty (7/10/10)

STEVENALI said:


> Hi Chaps Heres the go, I keep seeing these ice bank chillers on EBay they sell for just under $600 I have asked the seller a few questions but never got a full answer yet,I was wondering if I stick glycol in one of these and fed it from the pump to my font then to my fridge( 4 metres) and back to the tank would it freeze my font and keep my beer lines cold,
> at the moment I have the old fish pond pump in a tank of glycol and it does keep the lines cold and my font frozen but I only use the bar at the weekend and its like running a freezer with the door open(very costly power wise)has anyone got one and how does it go,




Hi Steve,
I also looked at getting one of these to stick under my planned bar setup running 4 corny kegs. Unfortunately these are pretty much designed to use in clubs, restaurants or events using commercial beer. Commercial beer has been tampered with, ie: preserved, to an extent, a convenience that us home brewers don't have. So storing your beer at room temp ( not ideal ) & chilling it with one of these is certainly not a good idea. If you stick your cornies in a fridge to avoid room temp problems, this thing is pointless. You may as well just run a keezer or a kegerator. Glycol is a much better alternative & will be the way i will be going $$$??? eventually.
Give Ross a call at craftbrewer, he'll set you straight & help you out. Have you seen his 10 tap glycol flooded font, sheesh. :icon_drool2:


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## Sammus (7/10/10)

I think OP wanted this to freeze his font only, not to cool the beer on the way to the font. ie have the beer in the kegerator keeping cold, but using this to stop the beer getting warm in the lines in the font.


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## Andyd (7/10/10)

Crusty said:


> Hi Steve,
> I also looked at getting one of these to stick under my planned bar setup running 4 corny kegs. Unfortunately these are pretty much designed to use in clubs, restaurants or events using commercial beer. Commercial beer has been tampered with, ie: preserved, to an extent, a convenience that us home brewers don't have. So storing your beer at room temp ( not ideal ) & chilling it with one of these is certainly not a good idea. If you stick your cornies in a fridge to avoid room temp problems, this thing is pointless. You may as well just run a keezer or a kegerator. Glycol is a much better alternative & will be the way i will be going $$$??? eventually.
> Give Ross a call at craftbrewer, he'll set you straight & help you out. Have you seen his 10 tap glycol flooded font, sheesh. :icon_drool2:




+1 on that opinion from me - I used to be of the school of thought that this would work. Theory and practice have taught me otherwise.

Staling is a chemical process, and the rate of any chemical process doubles with (roughly) every 10 degree C raise in temperature. So if you're brewing and then drinking the keg within the week that it's ready, you can get away with it. Otherwise you really need to keep the product of your labor nice and cold, and then you don't need these babies...

Andy


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## MHB (7/10/10)

I'm going to disagree with Crusty on almost every point; these can work very well in a home environment. There is one cardinal rule for using Ice-Banks (clue in the name!); that is that they must be able to make ice to work properly, anti freeze stops this from happening.
So keep the frigging glycol out of them.
It's pretty easy to use the font coolant water return to make a cool box beside the Ice-Bank that will hold the beer at 6-100C. Ice-Banks don't freeze the font, you will get condensation on the font and if you plumb them up properly the beer will be kept cold all the way to the tap.

MHB


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## Sammus (7/10/10)

Andyd said:


> +1 on that opinion from me - I used to be of the school of thought that this would work. Theory and practice have taught me otherwise.
> 
> Staling is a chemical process, and the rate of any chemical process doubles with (roughly) every 10 degree C raise in temperature. So if you're brewing and then drinking the keg within the week that it's ready, you can get away with it. Otherwise you really need to keep the product of your labor nice and cold, and then you don't need these babies...
> 
> Andy



I don't think this is what the OP is proposing. As I understand it, his beer is already cold; he doesn't want to cool his beer, he just wants an icy font.


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## STEVENALI (7/10/10)

Sammus said:


> I don't think this is what the OP is proposing. As I understand it, his beer is already cold; he doesn't want to cool his beer, he just wants an icy font.


Thats right the beer is in the fridge cold I just want the font to ice up, and my rational was, that if I used Glycol it would not form an ice bank but maybe it would get cold enough to do jsut that,


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## MHB (7/10/10)

I think a very small freezer, a good quality controller and a decent pump would be the way to go.

MHB


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## Sammus (7/10/10)

STEVENALI said:


> Thats right the beer is in the fridge cold I just want the font to ice up, and my rational was, that if I used Glycol it would not form an ice bank but maybe it would get cold enough to do jsut that,



yeah I think it'll do what you want for font ice, but id wait till someone with experience writes back. gotta make sure it's all set up right though, there's a fine line between not icing up the font, and freezing your beer lines.


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## Andyd (7/10/10)

STEVENALI said:


> Thats right the beer is in the fridge cold I just want the font to ice up, and my rational was, that if I used Glycol it would not form an ice bank but maybe it would get cold enough to do jsut that,



Oh the joys of reading on the train.

Ok. Got it now. I have a glycol bath (i.e. a cheap deep freeze that's sealed and filled with glycol at a high concentration). The cold glycol runs straight to the font and the return line travels back in the product python to keep the in-line beer chilled. I haven't managed to ice the font for longer than about an hour this way, buit the glycol has only been as low as -10. Will play with something colder once I get other things sorted out in the brewery...

Andy


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## mxd (7/10/10)

Andyd said:


> I haven't managed to ice the font for longer than about an hour this way, buit the glycol has only been as low as -10.




now that sounds cool (pardon the pun), I would like a flooded font, but I think I only want it for the look, but hey I'm shallow


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## STEVENALI (8/10/10)

the thing is you are right, there is no good reason to have a frozen font, and I am the first to admit it,it's purely a showoff waste of space, how the sales people managed to jam them into every publican in every major city in Australia is just beyond me, it must be the biggest waste of electricity in the land,I had to switch mine off cos I could not afford to run it.heres a picture of it in my old shed It is now set up under the house where its a bit cooler,thanks again for all the advice I intend to look into the small freezer idea.


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## ArnieW (8/10/10)

STEVENALI said:


> Hi Chaps Heres the go, I keep seeing these ice bank chillers on EBay they sell for just under $600 I have asked the seller a few questions but never got a full answer yet,I was wondering if I stick glycol in one of these and fed it from the pump to my font then to my fridge( 4 metres) and back to the tank would it freeze my font and keep my beer lines cold,
> at the moment I have the old fish pond pump in a tank of glycol and it does keep the lines cold and my font frozen but I only use the bar at the weekend and its like running a freezer with the door open(very costly power wise)has anyone got one and how does it go,


I have one of these and it will not ice up your font - the photos they use to promote them are highly misleading.

They do have an inbuilt flooded font pump in with the stirrer, so flooding your font is no trouble at all. What you will get with this is a cold font with condensation, but not an iced one.

But really they are for flash chilling your beer from a room temp keg. It works well for me here because I'm in a cool climate and even in the summer my kegs will stay at cellar temps.

cheers, Arnie


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## Brauhaus007 (8/10/10)

I may be a bit slow but what has an iced up font got to do with the quality of the beer coming out of it. Sounds like style over substance, spend your hard earned on making good beer.


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## STEVENALI (8/10/10)

ArnieW said:


> I have one of these and it will not ice up your font - the photos they use to promote them are highly misleading.
> 
> They do have an inbuilt flooded font pump in with the stirrer, so flooding your font is no trouble at all. What you will get with this is a cold font with condensation, but not an iced one.
> 
> ...


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