Anyone got experience with glycol temp control at home?
Ive got brewer's brain again, but this time its getting serious; I'm entertaining the idea of building a conical fermenter, mostly to up scale, so i can brew with mates who are keen. this leaves me with a few new hurdles; the main one being temp control, atm my fridge/freezer only just fits my fermenter, which dosnt matter cause it still works well. if i build this new monstrosity it will stand higher than the fridge.
i could get a bigger fridge, but this would restrict me in a couple of ways; a) space b) only one temp at a time.
ive been trolling the interweb and found a few hardcore dudes in the states who have aircon units with the radiator part submerged in glycol in a chillybin, fitted with controllers like this ,to circulate the coolant which is a bit techo/expensive for me.
so looking for elcheapo alternatives; could a resevoir of glycol in a deep freeze do the same? keep the glycol at aprox -10C and fit the temp controller to the cooling side to activate a pump that circulates the glycol around the copper coil on the fermenter?!
this has the advantage of fitting more than one pump/controller for more than one fermenter.
does anyone out there have experience with this sort of thing in a Homebrew situation?I
how big would the tank of glycol need to be to keep 100L of beer at 0C?
has anyone in the Auckland/Waikato region got somthing like this opperating that i could have a look at?
am I barking up the wrong hop bine thinking about this shit?
I suppose some experimentation might be in order
the second hand guy down the road said he would do me a swap on a deep freeze, (which will acommodate my current fermenter aswell)
all of this relates back to wether i should build the conical at all
any help is greatly appreciated, regards, Chad
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Chad Keven on
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thanks, thats a different take on it, but the same concept, how big is the tank? you think what i'm proposing would work; deep freeze?
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Permalink Reply by Fairlane on
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The tank is about 20L. You wouldn't need much more than that for what you're looking to do I think.
A small deep freeze is a good idea, the only issue that I can forsee is the plumbing. You will more than likely be trying to install a bulkhead fitting through the side of the freezer to connect hoses to and I can tell you from experience, they are a pain the the butt to try to seal if you have insulation sandwiched in between them.
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sweet, are you using the food grade stuff as mentioned by Ralph?
If I go ahead I intend to plum using the proper buteline type plumbing (to lessen the chance of leaks) to go from pump to coil/jacket and back to resevoir, insulated of course , maybe even position the pump inside the freezer so any leaks should they occur stay in the bottom of the freezer. I have a pump but its not submersible
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If you have a decent pump that can keep suction then that is the simplest way to go.
As for the piping, I think you'll find polybutylene (and especially the fittings) a bit more expensive than what I use... 1/2" garden hose and Hansen fittings, which I've had absolutely no problems with.
Bear in mind there are different types of PB for different temps also...
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