Glycol Cooling system

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Don
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Location: Dark Side of the Moon

Glycol Cooling system

Post by Don » Wed Jul 04, 2012 3:58 pm

I'm putting together ideas / items to build my Glycol Cooling system.

I have 1/2" & 1/4" stainless steel tubing - to build the glycol cooler in the fermenter, and lines for the pump.
Propylene glycol.
Small chest freezer - (glycol cooler)
Ranco controllers - for glycol temperature cooler control and fermentor temperature / pump control.

Not sure of the type of pump I need and the BTU load yet.

My first try was to build a foam formed sleeve with the SS tubing inserted close to the inside of the foam touching the carboy. I had planned on lifting the carboy into & out of the sleeve every time. I have 3 different size of carboys 6 1/2 glass, 6 BB and 5 glass. I don't have the room for 3 or more different coolers.

I do have my refrigerated cooled fermentor which will hold 4 carboys at one time. I can build a heat exchanger inside it, but then I will need to keep all the carboys at the same temp. This will work most of the time but I like the idea of being able to crash cool one carboy before kegging and running the others at 32 - 70 degs.

Does anyone have experience with glycol coolers / pumps?

Any suggestions are welcome.
Don Heisler

-------------------------
Brewers make wort, yeast make beer, God is good.

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Tom Wrinkles
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Joined: Mon May 24, 2010 8:47 am
Location: Henderson

Re: Glycol Cooling system

Post by Tom Wrinkles » Tue Jul 17, 2012 6:36 pm

Don, we recently moved a company from Maine that made Glycol cooled dump loads for FM and TV transmitters. I have built two myself but have not yet had to fill them with Glycol. I was told that if the load was to be tuned to a frequency, we would use the gravity method (not a pump). I know this does not help, but I wanted to help in any way possible. We do fill them with water and then pressurize them with 85 psi of compressed air to make sure they dont leak.
Tom Wrinkles

Beer makes you feel the way you ought to feel without beer.

Bottled/Kegged: Brown Ale, English Barleywine, Oatmeal Stout, Kolsch, Marzen, English Porter, Marzen,
Fermenting : ,
Next up: Saison, Belgian Blonde

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