glycol, Rapid cooling??

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Fraoch
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glycol, Rapid cooling??

Post by Fraoch »

I need a cheap and effective method to rapidly chill up to40 - 45 gals. I reckon i can increase my existing 10 gal system to 4x that amount if i can chill fast enough. Anybody made a rapid cooling system?? As always dollars are the deciding factor.
Freon12
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Time factor Vs Horse power

Post by Freon12 »

I made systems for two breweries, one for 775 gallons and one for 8000 Gallons. The difference being power. You need to know the maximum time to reduce the tempreture how many degrees. If you increase your current system, consider that it will take longer to cool with out increasing horsepower and pump power factors.
Fraoch
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commercial confusion

Post by Fraoch »

I'm a little confused as to what a glycol cooling system is. At the moment i run my hot wort through iced water via a coil of copper tubing using gravity. this works fine for 10 gal system but obviously no good for the upgrade. I was thinking of coiling copper tubing round the inside of the boiler against the wall as a permanent fixture and flushing cold water through this. The problem is that the water is not that cold especially in summer when its warm. At the moment it takes say 40 mins to coolthe boiled wort by which time the cooling water is no good as its warm. But my wort is at pitching temp. How would a commercial brewery chill their wort?? I'd like to make a mini system. I dont really see why my coil of copper wont work so long as i can flush a cold enough fluid through. What about a compressed gas??
hophead
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e-mail

Post by hophead »

Fraoch:
E-mail me after the holiday, I may have a solution to your problem...jgibbs5@juno.com....sorry but I just don't have the time now to go into it.
Freon12
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Glycol - the fix all

Post by Freon12 »

Commercial brewers use this food-safe anti freeze type liquid to cool wort because it can be recirculated through the jacket at any tempreture including below freezing. A pump runs it from the mechcanical cooling unit(possibly a chiller)and back to be recooled. Imagine putting a coil into your kettle and running constant 20f-10f liquid to it with out water or waste.
You could get 80f wort in 10min. I have been working on a design for a self contained unit. I have not built the unit because it would be very hard to sell, ship and warrenty. I think a proto-type could be done for $1200.00 and a production model would be $2150.00. Remcor makes some models but I don't know how much they cost. Maybe only serious brewers would try it and I would rather stay basement. Although there seems to be some interest in it.
Fraoch
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beer budget

Post by Fraoch »

Looked at used Glycol coolers and its all a bit expensive and too advanced for amateurs like myself. I wanted to upgrade to 40 gals as im supplying friends who have keg systems a refill. cant seem to make enough. It's all very backyerd stuff and ive overcome many obstacles with some lateral thinking except the cooling stage. My original method took 10 gals cold water to cool 10 gals wort - very inefficient. was thinking that maybe a counter flow system with recycled ice water using a fountain pump ( very cheap) may work. The good thing about home brewers is that we are all good lateral thinkers and someone will have a system that works really well. But at the end of the day your system is only going to be as good as the mean temp between the hot wort and cold fluid. Someone must have the cheap answer.
bluegrass
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Cheap and efficient??

Post by bluegrass »

Haven't tried this myself, but it works for a buddy who makes 15 gallon batches. An ordinary sump pump (at any hardware store for pumping out flooded basements, etc.) in the bottom of a tub of ice water, hooked to an ordinary (or slightly bigger depending on your batch size)wort chiller. The pump sits on the bottom of your tub (5 gallon bucket) full of ice water and simply recirculates from that source. Cold break in less than 15 minutes. Lots cheaper than glycol! Cheers!!!
dartedplus
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but...

Post by dartedplus »

but after the first pass through the chiller, the water would come out hot and the temp of the "ice " water in your bucket would be substantially raised. It would eventually even out at a higher temp, unless you kept adding ice to the bucket.
bluegrass
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you got it

Post by bluegrass »

That's exactly what he does. I've got a better idea though. We used to use a lot of plastic hose in a cooler between a 1/2 barrel and tap to chill beer at festivals and such. You probably could do the same to the water coming out of your chiller before it hits the five gallon bucket to recirculate into your wort. It seems like a bit of a hassle, but considering how much glycol is, it's worth it. If you have an ice maker on your fridge then that cuts out the cost of bags of ice (snow too, if you're in the right climate). There's a guy on ebay that is currently selling 6V sump pumps for around $10.00 too.
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