A glycol chiller using bits I have.

[cke11y]

Ok.

Folks might think this is weird, but I assure you I've thought about the alternatives a lot.

I am going to build a glycol chiller and wanted to hear any thoughts.

I have an upright small freezer. A bunch of coiled copper. Some huge PVC tubes and caps. Oh and a pump.

I'm thinking of creating a glycol reservoir out of PVC. Glycol will flow out to my desired source.

When glycol returns it will travel through a copper coil sitting in a separate PVC reservoir full of water (ice). It will then run in another custom back and forth loop against the exposed cooling coils sitting at the back of the freezer. Then it will dump into the reservoir hopefully nice and cool (ish) not raising the reservoir temp too significantly.

For stacks of reasons I prefer this approach over a butchered window ac unit job.

If I cool wort to say 50 degrees with tap water, reckon this rig will do the rest nicely??

Thoughts??

Thanks.

 

[spog]

I'm no fridgie,I like the idea but would a fan be of any use in this setup !.

 

[spstacey]

Is this to control fermentation temp? I l have also wondered if something like this would work. Assuming for fermentation, what will you use to wrap around the fermenter? I'm interested in this - please let us know how it works.

 

[cke11y]

Yeh.

It will be used for ferm control, but I have 2 Ss brew conical so I will just be using the Ftss.

I just really want it to be able to chill wort too. I kind of feel like it's wasteful having this unit just for ferm control. Preferably it will have dual usage. I guess I am pretty confident in its ability to do ferm control, and worst case it works nicely for that and doesn't do the trick for wort chilling and I'm back to using my rain water tank!

 

[Tex N Oz]

Hi cke11y,

I'd like to chime in with my 2 cents worth mate.

Are you wanting the glycol solution to be low temperature (below freezing) or medium temperature (refrigerator)?
Freezers vs Refrigerators could be a huge topic of it's own, but I'll try to run it down the best I can in a quick post.
Freezers are designed to remove heat slowly and to a much lower temperature, If you try to run them warm, the compressor will eventually overheat and give up the ghost, especially when you put a high load on them like you're suggesting. Refrigerators offer higher heat xfer capacities but at a higher temperature.
The old dodged up window unit thing is a bit of a debacle and can quickly owe itself to a failed compressor due to flood back to the compressor. They are not designed to run at evap temps that low.

My advice would be to insulate the hell outta everything and use a high capacity medium temperature system like in a refrigerator. But you could save yourself a lot of effort and just use an old commercial fridge to hold your fermenter.

 

[cke11y]

Thanks Tex N Oz - It might sound weird but your statement on freezer vs fridge was a bit revelational for me!

I will certainly insulate everything - but will continue trying to make this a low temp unit. Since its primary duty will be ferm control, and it won't need to do stacks of work for the size of the glycol reservoir I think it will be fine, as the res temp should not increase too much, and slow cooling will be OK as the unit won't run too often (my brew room is like 14-18 degrees this time of year, so doing a lager won't be much load).

When it comes to Wort chilling, I think I am going to help it out a little and add a crazy little system of a large plate chiller with my rainwater tank running through the cooling side, and returning glycol running through the hot side to help cool even further before re-entering the freezer.

Could be a waste of a couple hundred bucks, but I feel like a project!

 

[cke11y]

Just an update on this for the benefit of community knowledge

It works good!

I changed my design a little. Would love to upload some pics, but my computer is being weird.

I simply have a 30L plastic fermenter with water (and 3Kg of SALT) and on the return my copper coil sitting low in the freezer.

I have a keg king temp controller set to -3 degrees. Thanks to the salt water, this means the lines don't freeze up.

I just hooked up a Helles to the system (63L) at about 18 degrees, and it took about 50 mins to get to 9 degrees. The reservoir temp went from -3 to +5.

I have had it operating on a 'batch of water' for a few days, and it holds 9 degrees just fine. compressor on the freezer only operates about 2-3 x a day from what I can tell (ignoring night time).

The freezer (reservoir is currently recovering from the extreme cooling and is reducing at about 1 degree every 10 mins.

I think chain this to a 40% glycol system with the freezer set to something more like -15 will work well.

On a mother note, the SS brew FTSS in the big size is good! I wish the fittings would somehow work with some kind of quick disconnect system, but otherwise its a smart system for the price.

 

[Khellendros13]

Would love to see pics if you can now. Looking at something along these lines as you know.

 

[antiphile]

Absolutely fantastic job, cke11y. All of this stuff goes over my head, but I wish I saw your thread several weeks ago, because when I was costing commercal solutions, I found a DIY homebrew glycol solution. Have no idea whether it would have fitted your needs, though.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/3ju2tudtwlab6u7/DIY%20Homebrew%20Glycol%20Chiller%20-%20David%20Kucko.pdf?oref=e