Beer Line Chest Freezer And Glycol

[103681]

Hi guys,

We i have put my expirement together but have problems can anybody help

I have a chest freezer inside this i have 5 litres of glycol mixed with approx 20litres water in bottom of chest freezer, i have 1 keg of carlton draught from brewerey 50ltr sitting at room temprature outside then going into the freezer, inside the freezer i have approx 6mtrs beer line coiled up that sits in the liquid water/glycol mix. My beer tap is mounted to the top of the freezer lid with a pond pump pumping glycol/water mix to the top of the tower then it flows out of the base of the tower cooling it to condesation and falling back into the base of the freezer. When i check it this morining the temp of the freezer accoring to my fridgemate was 12 degrees, there was some beer in the lines still but this was frozen, also i tried pouring a beer last night and it said the temp was 14 degrees i guess to warm all i got was froth. Will this work basically i am creating a miracle box/jockey box using my chest freezer instead of a esky with ice. Is it foaming because beer is not cold enough yet, is there not enough line to cool the beer from room temprature ? how can i stop the beer in the line from freezing, what is the best temprature to leave the fridgemate at and what pressure should i have the keg gassed at as it is room temprature, i am using 6mm beer line should i add more glycol or beer line ??

sorry for the long post your help would be awsome, it used to work great when i used cornys that fitted inside the keg but i want tap beer but i dont have the time to brew but love beer please help, if anybody has done this before pics / setup gides would be great.

regards

matt

 

[kevnlis]

What are you using to measure the temperature? Is the fridgemate probe in the ambient air inside the freezer? My guess is that the glycol solution is colder than you think. Combine that with the fact that your cascading font is acting like a cooling tower and that explains the freezing.

Honestly I did not understand a lot of what you said so this could all be wrong. If you were a bit more clear about what you are doing I could answer this better for you.

 

[103681]

kevinls, thanks for your reply sorry i was confusing ill try simplfiy it here goes.

i have a 50ltr keg at room temrature the beer line runs into the bottom of my chest freezer where there is approx 6 metres of line coiled up, the coiled up line is sitting in a mix of 20 litres water : 5 litres of glycol approx. I have a pond pump in here which pumps water/glycol mix to the top of my beer tower then cascades down and finds it way back to the bottom of the chest freezer.

The beer line is freezing up on its way to the tap, how can i stop this ?? the freezer was at 12degrees this morning a per the fridgemate temp controller of which the little probe thingy is sitting in glycol/water mix in the bottom of the chest freezer;. Hope this is simple basically i am trying to get the same result as using a miricle box but using glycol/water mix instead of ice and hopefully getting some condesation on my font at the same time. Last thing the pump to cool the tower is only turned on when i am going to have a few beers.

 

[kevnlis]

The air above the liquid will have to get quite cold in order to cool that large volume. Every time the freezer cycles it is getting well below the point at which your beer will freeze. Believe it or not, if you leave the pump running 24/7 it will stop this from happening.

Why do you only cool to 12C?

 

[Ross]

As Kevin pointed out, the air above the mix will get far colder (maybe -20c) as it slowly drops the liquid temp. Your lines sat in this cold airspace will freeze.
If you fill your freezer with solution to the top of the coiling coils in the freezer wall you should get far better cooling efficiency & your lines will be fine.

cheers Ross

 

[103681]

thanks guys for you quick response, so if i fill the freezer up with mix to the top this will stop the freezing in the beer lines is that what you mean furthermore the beer comes out nearly all foam when i pour a beer is this because there is not enough beerline in the mixture to cool the room temp beer or pressure what do you think ?? also what do you think would be the best serving pressure for 50ltr keg same as corny kegs 7-10 psi as i used to use ?? i think the lines may be freezing because there is beer left in the line when i finished testing last night, could this be fixed buy flushin the line out with co2 or simply by getting the temp right where the beer will cool and stay cold but just enough not to freeze what temp does beer freeze at ??

thanks cheers and beers

 

[Ross]

thanks guys for you quick response, so if i fill the freezer up with mix to the top this will stop the freezing in the beer lines is that what you mean furthermore the beer comes out nearly all foam when i pour a beer is this because there is not enough beerline in the mixture to cool the room temp beer or pressure what do you think ?? also what do you think would be the best serving pressure for 50ltr keg same as corny kegs 7-10 psi as i used to use ?? i think the lines may be freezing because there is beer left in the line when i finished testing last night, could this be fixed buy flushin the line out with co2 or simply by getting the temp right where the beer will cool and stay cold but just enough not to freeze what temp does beer freeze at ??

thanks cheers and beers

Matt,

You won't get efficient cooling running your beer through beer line, as it's insulating it from the glycol mix - you need to incorporate a S/S coil or chiller plate in the system & then it will work. You can set your system when run properly to approx -4c without the beer freezing, any lower & you'll risk freezing.
At -4c you'll also be able to put ice on your font, if you so desire like mine below


cheers Ross

 

[103681]

ross, thanks heaps for your help i guess im on the right track now just need to get rid of the beer line and add a stainless coil do you sell these, know where i can get one ??

 

[cdbrown]

Matt,

You won't get efficient cooling running your beer through beer line, as it's insulating it from the glycol mix - you need to incorporate a S/S coil or chiller plate in the system & then it will work. You can set your system when run properly to approx -4c without the beer freezing, any lower & you'll risk freezing.
At -4c you'll also be able to put ice on your font, if you so desire like mine below
View attachment 18207

cheers Ross

Matt,
What was the temp of the glycol mix before you initially started to pump beer out of the keg? If it was warm I could understand that the freezer was working hard to get the glycol temp down to what you want and therefore froze the beer lines that were in the air space. Once the temp is reached and maintained then the freezing shouldn't be a problem as nobody seems to have frozen lines in there chest freezer when they have the keg temps set at 4c.

Ross, kev,
You say to bring the liquid level up to the top of the coils which would then provide direct cooling to the glycol mix. When people have kegs in the chest freezer and having the temp probe taped to a keg or in a tub of water this is the same as having small amount of glycol in that the coils are cooling the airspace - correct? Why is it that people don't experience frozen beer lines in this instance. The freezer will be trying to cool the air to -20c in order to cool the kegs. I'm just a little confused as why one freezes and the other doesn't.

Cheers
-cdbrown

 

[sathid]

Where is your temperature probe located?

If it is located in the air, or in a small reservoir, then I can't understand how it could possibly read 12C and freeze your lines unless it was faulty. If it is located in your glycol tank, then it is a little more understandable. The temperature change of the glycol tank and kegs will lag behind that of say, the beer lines, because of the greater mass. So if your probe is in the glycol, then the freezer could be going full stick, freezing the beer lines, before it is "told" that the temperature is at the right level.

Best option would be to have the probe in a small reservoir, and have a separate temp readout on the glycol tank, and only start pouring beers once the temp in the tank matches that of the freezer.