Review my design.....Will a corny keg be sufficient?

I am starting to design and collect parts for an AG build. I am trying to make my system as compact as possible.(I live in a townhome with a small garage) I was thinking of going with a two kettle design to save on space, then I came across a project from texas where they used a corny keg for heat exchange.

I thought well maybe that would work as a dual purpose heat exchange/wort cooler for my system. The picture below is my initial thoughts.

A little explanation. The "plumbing panel" will be quick disconnects for the various pathways need for the pump.(don't want to deal with valves, plus I can hide all the plumbing out of sight). I will use tubing "patch cables". This may keep me from needing two pumps. still not decided on that yet. Electric controls are not shown on the drawing. I will probably use a labjack and an old laptop I have. Also not in the picture is the copper coil that will be in the heat exchanger.

I guess my big hang up is the size of the HLT(heat exchanger). If I am heating my MLT water before dough in right in place. I am thinking the corny should be big enough for the amount of water I would need for the mash out rinse. Then of course fill it with cold water and ice for cooling the wort in the end.

Does this sound reasonable? What might I consider before moving forward.

O.K. here are some thoughts:
If you are going to use the water in the heat exchanger for your sparge water, how much sparge water are you going to need. with the orientation of your heating element in the drawing, you'll have to be careful not to run your water low enough to short your heating element. Also, are you going to take the cooling coil in and out of the HLT? If you leave it in, your water capacity will be lower. I'm sure it will work, just be careful with the orientation of all of you pieces. Hope this helps. - Dwain

Dwain said:

O.K. here are some thoughts:
If you are going to use the water in the heat exchanger for your sparge water, how much sparge water are you going to need. with the orientation of your heating element in the drawing, you'll have to be careful not to run your water low enough to short your heating element. Also, are you going to take the cooling coil in and out of the HLT? If you leave it in, your water capacity will be lower. I'm sure it will work, just be careful with the orientation of all of you pieces. Hope this helps. - Dwain

Click to expand...

That one slipped by me. I might need to use a shorter element or bend it back on itself. I will probably try to attach it from the side rather then the bottom. As for the coil. That is still an unknown. I would like to have it permanent but I need to stick it in there and measure the water volume of the tank after it is in there. I guess like you said it will depend on how much sparge water I need and the displacement of the coil.

Thanks for the help

You could do a double batch sparge by heating the first batch in the BK then the second sparge in the HLT.

The plumbing manifold could be a good idea, but I would suggest not screwing with the pump inputs in that case so you don't have a pain priming the pumps every time you runs them.

Why do you want the element in the MLT?

Boerderij_Kabouter said:

You could do a double batch sparge by heating the first batch in the BK then the second sparge in the HLT.

The plumbing manifold could be a good idea, but I would suggest not screwing with the pump inputs in that case so you don't have a pain priming the pumps every time you runs them.

Why do you want the element in the MLT?

Click to expand...

Funny you ask that. I have no idea. All of a sudden last night I thought. I could save some money by heating the MLT water from the Boil Kettle and pump that into the MLT. That is one less element and associated parts to make it work. So that is now out of the design.

As for the pump inputs.... I see your point but, I was hoping I could get away with one pump by having the manifold set up easy to use. If that will create priming issues that will be a pain to deal with, I might just go ahead and get two pumps.

Thanks for your input.

So I scored this weekend at the Habitat Reuse Store. I like to stop in and see what I can use for projects I might be working on. Well today i scored big. I found the perfect piece to cannibalize. This table is the perfect width and it was made with heavy gauge steel. I got it for $10. After a little bit of cutting i got it just the right size for my new system.

I was not planning on starting this project so soon, but I could not pass up the opportunity. With Christmas coming I might end up with all the parts to complete it.

Here is the new brew stand. It should work out perfect.

I'm not sure if you've seen this yet... But I'm pretty sure this guy did something similar... might have some insight for ya in there. I am a big fan of the Brutus 20 system.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f51/brutus-20e-build-61699/

Not sure how you plan to cool your wort, but simply passing it through a corny filled with ice and water will not be sufficient. There are way too many calories of energy in boiling wort to be cooled in that small of a volume. It would cool 2.5 gallon batches very nicely though.

I have looked over his build and few others to help my though process. I liked his design. Instead of using a RIMS type heating element I think I am going to use a corny keg with a coil in it. This way I can use it as a chiller too.

I am going to wrap my kegs in insulation like he did. I am also going to plumb everything out with copper and use quick disconnects.

The Pol said:

Not sure how you plan to cool your wort, but simply passing it through a corny filled with ice and water will not be sufficient. There are way too many calories of energy in boiling wort to be cooled in that small of a volume. It would cool 2.5 gallon batches very nicely though.

Click to expand...

I use less then five gallons of water and two blocks of ice now to cool my wort. It takes about 20 minutes to cool 5 gallons. I should be good. If I need to I can use my immersion chiller too when doing 10 gallon batches.

Brewmoor said:

I use less then five gallons of water and two blocks of ice now to cool my wort. It takes about 20 minutes to cool 5 gallons. I should be good. If I need to I can use my immersion chiller too when doing 10 gallon batches.

Click to expand...

The only reason I ask, is that I have done this.

We had a thread going, where we calculated it all using equations. Basically taking the calories of energy in boiling wort and seeing how many calories it takes to melt ice.

I built a closed system wort cooler. It uses 44 pounds of ice and 3 gallons of water to cool 5 gallons in 20 minutes. It utilizes kettle recirculation to do so.

44# of ice and 3 gallons of water, is a 10 gallon volume by the way.

I would say that your 5 gallon cooling vessel, is very undersized based on the calcualtions we did and using the process 4 times thus far

Here is a link to the thread, and the calculations. If you read to the end of the thread you will see where ice cube size is discussed, since the time to cool will be SHORTER if you can melt the ice FASTER.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f11/therminator-ice-water-whirlpool-question-140003/index7.html

You will also see my #s from the testing that I did prior to using this method on an actual brew session. I have used it twice on lagers since making the needed modifications to my kettle for the recirc.

It works really well, the concept works, but it takes A LOT of volume to make it happen.

The Pol said:

The only reason I ask, is that I have done this.

We had a thread going, where we calculated it all using equations. Basically taking the calories of energy in boiling wort and seeing how many calories it takes to melt ice.

I built a closed system wort cooler. It uses 44 pounds of ice and 3 gallons of water to cool 5 gallons in 20 minutes. It utilizes kettle recirculation to do so.

44# of ice and 3 gallons of water, is a 10 gallon volume by the way.

I would say that your 5 gallon cooling vessel, is very undersized based on the calcualtions we did and using the process 4 times thus far

Click to expand...

Well I will consider it.

Like I said, the concept works, and it works well. I can get to lager pitch temps in 30 minutes. But it does take all of the thermal mass I have available to do so, all 10 gallons of it. I have thermocouples in both vessels, I can read the cooling fluid temp. as I cool...

By the time I reach 60F wort temp. the ice is completely melted and the cooling medium is about 50F. Once you reach this point, the differential is not great enough for much heat exchange to take place.

Your idea would work well to augment another chiller though.

Here is the recirc. to the kettle:


Inside too:

To answer a Q from a prior post.

A 1/2" 25' copper coil will displace almost exactly .5 gallons, this I do know.

So here is a plumbing diagram I came up with. It has changed ten times over the weekend so I am sure it will change some more. I am just trying to think of what might cause problems along the way. I am sure the design will change a few more times before I fit the plumbing.



All connections will be quick disconnect and some will have check valves so I don't get wet when changing things around. The idea is to make all vessels easily removable for cleaning. I am also not sure if I want the pipe from lower section to the upper section. It is not necessary but it might get used.