Cooling Water/ Glycol

[Roota069]

Hello All.
Has anyone ever seen or done cooling water in S/S pipes or copper in the fermenter to keep temp down.
Reason: I have 1x fridge for keg and nil room left for fermenting fridge, thought i could us the freezer in existing fridge for glycol and pump through line to fermenter. thermostat control etc..

Roota

 

[Beer Guy]

Hey Roota coil;s in the fermenter no problem. The Sail and Anvhor's old fermenters (god rest their soul) had ss coils in the middle and worked very well at cooling down the brew and controlling ferment temps. Can be tricky to clean (tose were about 4000 liter tanks though)

I would suggest if you use glycol in the cooling circuit that you stain the glycol with a flourocene dye or another type of dye so that if you lose integrity in the coil it will show up in the product and be very visible. Glycol has some unpleasant side effects as the guy who's wife tried to poisin him with it found out allthough now he has no kidney function and is blind.

 

[Beer Guy]

Probably would not use copper either. Copper works fine for as a kettle or a wort chiller with the short contact time. In high concentrations it is toxic to yeast , so it would not make good choice for any long term storage, like a fermenter or bright beer tank or serving tank.

 

[Roota069]

Probably would not use copper either. Copper works fine for as a kettle or a wort chiller with the short contact time. In high concentrations it is toxic to yeast , so it would not make good choice for any long term storage, like a fermenter or bright beer tank or serving tank.

Beerguy
Thanks heaps for info, Ill look into it further.

roota.

 

[Millet Man]

Hello All.
Has anyone ever seen or done cooling water in S/S pipes or copper in the fermenter to keep temp down.
Reason: I have 1x fridge for keg and nil room left for fermenting fridge, thought i could us the freezer in existing fridge for glycol and pump through line to fermenter. thermostat control etc..

Roota

G'day Roota,

Might be able to help you out with a fridge if you want another one. Not sure if you meant you had no room left in your fridge for fermenter or no room for another fridge?

Cheers, Andrew.

 

[wessmith]

This wont really help much but does show a typical German setup of an open fermentation gallery and the attemporator coils in one of the empty vessels. Hoepfner Brewery in Karlsruhe circa 2002.

Wes

 

[Roota069]

G'day Roota,

Might be able to help you out with a fridge if you want another one. Not sure if you meant you had no room left in your fridge for fermenter or no room for another fridge?

Cheers, Andrew.

Millet Man
Yep.
Sheds full as an egg, even had to sell the greenfield to get the keg fridge in. priority's

Roota

 

[Roota069]

This wont really help much but does show a typical German setup of an open fermentation gallery and the attemporator coils in one of the empty vessels. Hoepfner Brewery in Karlsruhe circa 2002.

Wes

Wes.
Pic's are good, TA. gives me more incentive now.
Roota

 

[Millet Man]

Millet Man
Yep.
Sheds full as an egg, even had to sell the greenfield to get the keg fridge in. priority's

Roota

No worries Roota,

If you find space for one on the back porch let me know.

Cheers, Andrew.

 

[ausdb]

Hi Roota look around for some stainless product coils out of an ice bank beer cooler they would do the trick nicely. I have thought about the idea but not implemented it yet but that temprite chiller unit that was posted about the other day would go fantastic with a system like this.
In your freezer make sure the storage tank is metal (copper would be awesome) so you get good conductivity with the base of your freezer section, I am assuming your fridge/freezer is an old school cyclic defrost type where the freezer doesn't have a fan and the bottom of the freezer has the coiling coil beneath it. On the Glycol front make sure it is propylene glycol not radiator coolant (ethylene glycol)

 

[Roota069]

G,day ausdb
I was wondering about the glycol. "mmmm" have to find some and give it a go. already have S/S tank that sits in the freezer. just have to be careful about the gas lines and holes etc...

Roota

 

[slacka]

On the Glycol front make sure it is propylene glycol not radiator coolant (ethylene glycol)

It doesn't have to be 'that' cold does it?
I use a small pond pump in an old napisan container of ethanol to frost my beer taps. In the event of catastrophe, I'd probably just get drunk a wee bit quicker.

 

[andrewg1978]

Hi All,

Does anyone know where to buy propylene glycol in melbourne (West?) or a suitable substitute.

Thanks
Andrew

 

[ausdb]

Try a refrigeration parts supplier such as Actrol or Heatcraft or isn't Andale in Melbourne?

 

[andrewg1978]

Try a refrigeration parts supplier such as Actrol or Heatcraft or isn't Andale in Melbourne?

Thanks for that, never thought of andale