Glycol/chilled Water For Fermentation Temp Control

[head]

Was just having a flick through some of the brewstand pics and the old gears started to turn.......How hard would it be to do a fermentation stand, with a few normal, or to go really flash conical fermenters in series that are all temperature controlled for fermentation and lagering. The reason I started to think about this is with one fermentation fridge, and a double batch, there is only so much that can be done at once. If you wanted to do more brews, the fridges start to breed or you get into the big arse freezer/coldroom arena then the power bill gets ugly and the missus gets angry. Or is that the power bill gets angry and the missus gets ugly? Anyway I digress.

What I was wondering is has anyone tried something similar or seen it done? If so how easily was it achieved? From the way I was thinking it does not seem to be a hard proposal to achieve, you just need a chest freezer, some solenoids, a pump or 2, immersion chillers for each fermenter and the temp controllers.

What is the consensus. Is it as easy to do as I think it is and would it be worth the farting around and cost to do?

Cheers,
Head

 

[Wortgames]

It's certainly possible, and it has been done - but it wouldn't be especially cheap or simple.

For a start, you'd really need to use stainless coils, as anything else is likely to react with fermenting wort. Stainless is kind of pricey, and it isn't a fantastic conductor of heat, so you'd need a decent length - then you'd need a pump, and a temperature controller, and a freezer full of glycol etc.

If you had several fermenters and wanted to chill them with one chest freezer it might be practical, but the truth is that it is easier for most homebrewers to stick their fermenters in a fridge.

 

[ausdb]

What I was wondering is has anyone tried something similar or seen it done? If so how easily was it achieved? From the way I was thinking it does not seem to be a hard proposal to achieve, you just need a chest freezer, some solenoids, a pump or 2, immersion chillers for each fermenter and the temp controllers.

What is the consensus. Is it as easy to do as I think it is and would it be worth the farting around and cost to do?

Cheers,
Head

Great idea and that is basically how the big boys do it except with jacketed fermenters. The cooling coil in the fermenter would probably do the trick if you could get enough coil area into the fermenter to keep them cool. You would also need to insulate the fermenters pretty well. I too have toyed with the idea making a glycol tank to sit in the freezer section of a fridge and then recircing it through coils placed in fermenters but as I brew so sporadically at the moment it has never come to reality

 

[hughyg]

Or you could use a plastic fermenter and coil a poly tube around it really tightly and run the glycol through the coil. Would be cheap to set up. Have seen this system set up before and one of the big guys on a small transportable tank. But dont know of how to do a cheap glycol system!!!

 

[Andyd]

I've collected a lot of the kit needed to do exactly this over the last couple of months. I was planning to wrap a few fermentors in poly tube, with solenoids individually controlling the flow of cooling/heating fluid to each fermentor.

The cheap glycol system is relatively easy too. Go down to KMart and buy yourself a new 60lt chest freezer (don't bother with an old one - the power bills will offset any saving after a relatively short period). Mine cost about $170.

The inner section of the kmart freezer is pretty cheap and nasty - so seal up all the corners, and also fill the bung with silicon. I'd suggest Selleys 401 for this job.

Now, fill the whole freezer with a 30% glycol mix, and use a submersible pond pump to move the glycol into the cooing coils as necessary.

I currently use this style of set-upn to chill my beer coming up from the kegs under the house, and it works a treat.

Good luck - I'll post pictures as I put this lot together.

Andy

 

[sqyre]

I too am looking at doing something similiar...

I toyed with the idea of having stainless coil fitted to the lids of each fermenter to run a glycol through to control the temp. But at the end of the day, depending on how many fermenters you have and how much temp control you want or if you want different temps ie lagers/ales.Plus the insulating of the fermenters. It can all get rather expensive, not to mention complicated and then theres maintanence on all those hoses,etc.etc.

I have decided to build a large chest freezer style shallow box out of cold room panel that neatly holds 6-10 fermenters in a row.

I already have a home made glycol chiller and will use that to chill the box. I am looking at putting 2 seperate copper coils at each end of the box with 2 seperate pumps and temp controllers, this way i can have an Ales end and a Lagers end. the partition in between will be moveable so depending on the number of Ales/Lagers i have to ferment i can make room accordingly. Or if i have all ales or all Lagers i can remove the partion completly and set both temp controllers to the same temp and make one big fridge.

Making my options quite flexible..

All ready have the cold room panels, copper piping and a pump. just need a couple of temp controllers, another pump and little bit of aluminium angle for edging the box. The other option is 2 solunoids..save the cost on another pump.

Yeh might try that..



Sqyre..