Cooling coil for 15gal fermenter?

[wootz001]

Hi All,

Got my A/C glycol chiller setup and running nicely. Been comparing the different options for cooling my fermenter... I did a little experiment by wrapping my 15 gallon conical with 50ft of 1/2 inch DD 3/8 inch ID vinyl tubing -- Which would probably work just fine for me holding ale fermentation temps, but I would like to cold crash, and it was taking 36hrs+ to go from 65F down to 40F. Thinking an internal coil is the way to go (although I am still talking myself into cutting holes in my shiny SS). With a 15 gallon vessel, and 11-12 gallon batch size, what would be the way to go? I am looking at the temp twister on the low-end, which I am guesstimating is about 15 to 20 feet of 3/8 inch OD coil (?). Would this be enough? Could go bigger with 50 feet of coil, but wondering if that is overkill?

Thanks!

 

[Unicorn_Platypus]

I use the temp twister on my 27 Liter fermzilla (with insulated jacket) in conjunction with a Brewbuuilt icemaster max and its pretty powerful. I rarely run the glycol more than 15 degrees below target temperature. Cold crashing to 33 degrees F is also very quick if I set the glycol reservoir down to -2 Celsius.

If your fermenter is insulated and the lines are insulated you should probably be OK, unless you are setting it up in a hot garage in summer or something like that.

My recommendation would be to check with Bobby at Brewhardware.com though. He will know.

 

[wootz001]

Thanks. Good to hear. I’ve been looking at the coils across the various vendors. They all seem to be roughly similar for 5-10 gallon sizes, which is comforting.

 

[Unicorn_Platypus]

Thanks. Good to hear. I’ve been looking at the coils across the various vendors. They all seem to be roughly similar for 5-10 gallon sizes, which is comforting.

To be clear though I'm only running 5 gallon batches out of a 27 L vessel