Glycol Mix Ratio A Little Help Please

[trooper]

o.k. need a little help please ,
Recently my keggerater shat itself I searched around and a friend of mine had a small temprite unit which had a 5 ltr ressevoir with a small refrigeration unit that chilled the beer u fourtunately you could not run any more than 1 keg at a time. Wht I have done to modify the system is I have ordered 2 4mm stainless steel coils which will fit inside the tank and i can the run 2 taps from the system .At present I am running 10 mtrs of beer line inside the tank to opreate my keg system I have filled the ressevvoir with sterelised water and the chill temp is around 1.2-1.6c.Unfortuneatly the beer temp is cold but I find its still not cold enough ,I now plan to introduce food grade ethel glycol into the water tank to lower the temp in the system to below zero . What I am after is any information an the water to glycol mix ratio if any one can help it would be greatly apriciated

 

[schooey]

Commercial glycol system in my FIL's pub runs a 30% glycol mix. It recently got down to 12% (deterioration over time) and froze the system

 

[LethalCorpse]

Dude, have a think about what you're doing. If you're hoping that ethylene (or propylene, as you should be using if it has any chance of coming in contact with the beer) glycol will somehow magically lower the temperature of your beer, you're on the wrong track. Glycol itself cannot change the temperature. In fact, glycol mixes have slightly poorer heat capacity than water, so if anything, adding glycol will raise the temperature of the dispensed beer.

If you mean that you plan to add glycol to the water bath for your coil so that you can drop the temperature of the cooling system below zero while preventing the bath from freezing, then did you not think to consult google? There's a wikipedia entry here giving the freezing point versus concentration. Learn to internets.

 

[schooey]

If you mean that you plan to add glycol to the water bath for your coil so that you can drop the temperature of the cooling system below zero while preventing the bath from freezing, then did you not think to consult google?

:blink: I thought it was pretty straight forward that's what the OP meant... and I'm pretty sure most of the questions asked on this forum could be answered in some form on google, why so high on your horses?

 

[alowen474]

Why not turn your unit down to near zero anyway and see what it does. If you a re drawing beer through it with any regularity it should help prevent the water freezing and also if you have an agitator that can help too.

 

[LethalCorpse]

:blink: I thought it was pretty straight forward that's what the OP meant... and I'm pretty sure most of the questions asked on this forum could be answered in some form on google, why so high on your horses?

It wasn't at all straightforward. As I read it, he's expecting the glycol to lower the temperature. Since the rest of his post was poorly constructed, I'm happy for that to be inaccurate, but I had to respond with both interpretations.

Yes, most questions on here could be answered, eventually, by google. Some of them are easier to google than others. But when you can type "Ethylene glycol" into google and have your questioned answered with the very first link, it's irritating that people don't bother to try that first. This is a forum, I've never found a forum where the phrase "Search before posting" didn't apply frequently. Maybe he tried "ethel glycol", as he incorrectly called it, but the first result for that answers his question too.

 

[QldKev]

Here

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=Ethylene+glycol


Someone had to do it :lol:

QldKev

 

[trooper]

Dude, have a think about what you're doing. If you're hoping that ethylene (or propylene, as you should be using if it has any chance of coming in contact with the beer) glycol will somehow magically lower the temperature of your beer, you're on the wrong track. Glycol itself cannot change the temperature. In fact, glycol mixes have slightly poorer heat capacity than water, so if anything, adding glycol will raise the temperature of the dispensed beer.

If you mean that you plan to add glycol to the water bath for your coil so that you can drop the temperature of the cooling system below zero while preventing the bath from freezing, then did you not think to consult google? There's a wikipedia entry here giving the freezing point versus concentration. Learn to internets.

SHEESH! I usually do most of my resarch by using google THERE ARE ABOUT A MILLION HITS WHEN YOU PUNCH IN ETHELYN GLYCOL ! its simple a 5ltr tank with refrigerated water with a coil of 10mtrs of beer line in at present the system runs at 1.6c and I'm hoping to lower the tank temp by adding glycol ! in other words how much will I have to buy and how much do i mix with water to create an ice bath to poor my beer through I dont usually use forums these days because people either get up on their high horse and treat you like a dumb ass or they loose you with all the tech bull ! so I'll just go back to google and work it out with my mates down at the home brew shop thanks for the great advise mate P.S. GO STORM

 

[LethalCorpse]

Listen, sport, if you don't want to be treated like a dumbass, then stop behaving like one. Firstly, it's ethylene glycol, not ethel, or ethelyn, or any other bastardised way you try to spell it. Google can correct some mistakes, but it's not clairvoyant. Stop me if the words get too long.

Secondly, any google search usually comes up with about a million results. The internet is a REALLY big place, and google has read most of it. Did you actually read[/i ] an of those million results? If you typed it in correctly, the very first result is the wikipedia article I linked to in my first post. It has a table halfway down the page giving freezing points for various concentrations of glycol. I don't expect you to read every page google returns, then go to the library and read every book on the subject before posting a question. If you fail to conduct the most basic of searches, or fail to even glance at the results, I will flame you into the middle of next week.

But now we come back to the crux of the problem, vis. you being a dumbass. In your indignant little tantrum there you said you're hoping to lower the tank temp by adding glycol. If you'd read any of those google results about the applications of glycol, you'd know that this is impossible. You can add as much glycol as you like and the temperature of the bath will still be 1.6C. The temperature of the dispensed beer will not go down either, in fact, it will go up slightly because glycol is not as good at absorbing and transferring heat as water. The only advantages of adding glycol are its fungicidal and corrosion inhibiting properties and its ability to change the freezing and boiling points of water.You can make it go colder before it turns hard. It doesn't magically make it go colder. To achieve a lower temperature, you need to change the cooling system. Lower the thermostat, or get it regassed, or fix the compressor, or the leaky seal, or chuck it and get something that will chill to negative temperatures.

If you'd bothered to read my post instead of whining about your poor bruised ego, you'd know all this already. You see, I answered your question and treated you like a dumbass at the same time. Not that any of it matters, since I'm pretty sure you stopped reading way back on clairvoyant, I'm just going to go right ahead and call you a dumbass one last time and wait for someone to come and read it out loud for you.

 

[jjeffrey]

Lethal, there is no reason to get hot under the collar because someone is trying to come to terms with a problem they are having. This is a home brewing forum, not an insult fest. Your initial post was both insulting and intimidating. Your subsequent posts were worse. Judging by your responses, it would seem to me that it is your ego that has been bruised by this thread. Didn't your mother ever tell you that if you don't have anything nice to say, then keep your trap shut? Grow up. There are more productive means to express yourself and communicate information without resorting to name calling and debasing people.

The vocalisation of judgement on people's knowledge or ability has no place here. The purpose of this forum is to assist, and the very first line of Trooper's thread was requesting just that. If you can't contribute in a productive manner then perhaps you should post elsewhere.

My apologies for hijacking your thread Trooper.

jj.

 

[LethalCorpse]

MY ego is quite unharmed, but I'll pass on your concern.

 

[jjeffrey]

MY ego is quite unharmed

Fantastic. More useful and relevant information AND +1 to the post counter. Nice work. I do hope that whatever alter-egos you pass my concerns onto are equally unscathed.

Trooper, when you say the chill temp is around 1.2-1.6 degrees, is that the actual temperature of the water or the thermostat setting? Also, what is your target beer serving temperature? What temperature are your kegs at? From your description, I'm not 100% clear on your configuration (I'm a bit of a dumb-ass)- can you upload a sketch or try again in words?

If you do drop the temprite temp below zero to get extra temperature driving force, don't drop it below about -4 or you will risk freezing up your system. Also, you may want to consider a elthanol-water mix over a EG-water mix, I find them to be cheaper and easier.

This thread didn't discuss serving equipment, but does have some relevant info for brine solutions and concentrations: [topic="35184"]Glycol For Plate Chiller[/topic]

Cheers,

jj.