Glycol Chiller DIY Ideas

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trailblazer

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anyone have a way to cool glycol and pump it through a stainless coil either on the inside or a copper coil on the outside of a fermenter? i was looking at those aquarium coolers but they are pricy for even small ones and i dont know how well they would work. I herd another idea that involves a window A/C with the evap coil immersed in a cooler. There are two pumps in the cooler, each controlled by a temp controller monitoring its' conical. A third controller monitors the glycol bath. this was darrin's setup (brewer's hardware) and he says he could cool 85 degree wort down to 65 in 1.5 hours. you can also run this through a counterflow wort chiller. the only problem is finding a cheap/used ac unit to destoy. you could pump the glycol with a cheap submersible pump and insulate the fermenter with foil bubble wrap.

im either going to build/buy a glycol chiller or im gonna get a frige and a ranco. i could only fit one fermenter in the frige (but its proly cheaper), with the glycol i could probably do two or three at the same time.
 
Brew your own magazine had an article about how to build your own glycol fermenter, there might be some info. that you could use for your project. Good Luck...
 
anyone have a way to cool glycol and pump it through a stainless coil either on the inside or a copper coil on the outside of a fermenter?

My neighbor and I built our 30 gallon water chiller.
He designed and built the most important part, the evaporator coil, I did the easy stuff.
The cooling unit is a Copland commercial unit.
The fermenters have internal SS cooling coils, temp controllers and water valves.
ChillerFrontView5.jpg


More pics

Cheers,
ClaudiusB
 
I think you have to evaluate why you want to use glycol as opposed to using a chill box. One reason might be that your fermenters are hard to move and too large to put inside a fridge/freezer. Maybe you need more than one temp. You could use a controller to trigger more than one pump from a common glycol reservoir. However, if all you're trying to do is keep a couple carboys cool, a used chest freezer is probably better, more energy efficient, cheaper.etc.
 
im gonna go check out a frige i found on craigs list that dosnt look to bad. if i can get it for 100$ i might go home with it. then i can search fleabay for a deal on a ranco. now that im seeing these glycol chiller projects its kinda intimidating.
 

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