Alright long story short I am turning a 53 gallon oak barrel into a keggerator with two cornys inside. Basically I have a garbage can inside the barrel with an inch of "great stuff" foam between it and the side walls of the barrel. In side the garbage can are my two kegs and my CO2.
My plan and the way things currently are relies on using water to exchange heat within the barrel system. I have a mini fridge (really mini maybe 2.0 CU ft) with 2.5 gallons of water in it that gets pumped (by a submerged low power water pump) directly into the trash can inside the barrel. The barrel simultaneously drains water back into the mini fridge. So the kegs and CO2 are actually in a water bath that is 80% of their height.
This system has an enormous thermal mass, basically there are 10 gallons of liquid in the kegs and probably another 6 in the garbage can. I turned it on for the first time last night and here is what I have for data after 5 hours of running.
At Start:
Fridge temp 60F
Water inside barrel 74F
4 Hours after
Fridge Temp 57.5F
Water inside barrel 67.5
I am worried at this point that I don't have the cooling capacity with this small fridge. I would consider it a success if I was able to get the beer to 42F even if it took a full week to chill it. I would also be somewhat happy if I had to spike the barrel with a few frozen water jugs whenever I added warm beer to the kegs as long as the system cool keep a cool temp on it's own after that initial ice spike. At this point I am waiting to see if things cool down, but also want to start planning other options.
Other options include:
Larger fridge or freezer (off craigslist) same idea of water pump and water bath in the barrel. This would give me the ability to have more water in the fridge and also more cooling capacity. Your thoughts?
Putting a cooling unit of a fridge or freezer directly in the garbage can inside the keg. Don't know how to do this, I would definitely need to run lines external to the barrel and there also isn't much room in there.
What are your thoughts on this whole system. Obviously it's way out there, but I'm going for something unique and If I can just figure out how to chill it I'll have the coolest keggerator.
Thanks
My plan and the way things currently are relies on using water to exchange heat within the barrel system. I have a mini fridge (really mini maybe 2.0 CU ft) with 2.5 gallons of water in it that gets pumped (by a submerged low power water pump) directly into the trash can inside the barrel. The barrel simultaneously drains water back into the mini fridge. So the kegs and CO2 are actually in a water bath that is 80% of their height.
This system has an enormous thermal mass, basically there are 10 gallons of liquid in the kegs and probably another 6 in the garbage can. I turned it on for the first time last night and here is what I have for data after 5 hours of running.
At Start:
Fridge temp 60F
Water inside barrel 74F
4 Hours after
Fridge Temp 57.5F
Water inside barrel 67.5
I am worried at this point that I don't have the cooling capacity with this small fridge. I would consider it a success if I was able to get the beer to 42F even if it took a full week to chill it. I would also be somewhat happy if I had to spike the barrel with a few frozen water jugs whenever I added warm beer to the kegs as long as the system cool keep a cool temp on it's own after that initial ice spike. At this point I am waiting to see if things cool down, but also want to start planning other options.
Other options include:
Larger fridge or freezer (off craigslist) same idea of water pump and water bath in the barrel. This would give me the ability to have more water in the fridge and also more cooling capacity. Your thoughts?
Putting a cooling unit of a fridge or freezer directly in the garbage can inside the keg. Don't know how to do this, I would definitely need to run lines external to the barrel and there also isn't much room in there.
What are your thoughts on this whole system. Obviously it's way out there, but I'm going for something unique and If I can just figure out how to chill it I'll have the coolest keggerator.
Thanks