How far can my glycol chiller be away from my fermenter to effectively control fermentation temps?

[dqbco89]

My wife is very good to me. She and I live in a small, one-bedroom apartment, and she’s agreed to let me ferment beer in our living room as long as I “make it look good.” Fortunately for me, she thinks the Spike conicals look really cool (I’m a lucky guy), so I’m pretty sure I’ll be getting one of the CF 5s.

My main logistical problem at this point is figuring out how to control the fermentation temperature. We don’t have enough space for a fridge/fermentation chamber—plus I don’t think that would “look good.”

I considered getting an immersion pro Brewjacket and using that with an SS Brewtech fermenter. I like that it has a small footprint but ultimately decided against it because we plan to move somewhere where we will have considerably more space in the next few years, and, if I’m going to drop a decent chunk of change, I’d prefer to do so on a system I’ll use longer term—and I don’t think I’d like to control fermentation temps long term with the Brewjacket.

I’m currently leaning towards getting a glycol chiller, which is obviously very expensive but something I know I would continue to use long into the future (when we have more space, I’d plan on getting additional fermenters to hook up to it). Problem is, we don’t have enough space in the living room for the glycol chiller either (I’m looking at the ½ HP Penguin model Spike recommends: https://www.penguinchillers.com/product/12-hp-glycol-chiller/).

My thought is to put the glycol chiller in the closet in our bedroom and run the tubing along the baseboard of the living room behind our furniture—hiding it wherever its exposed with large cord hiders.

My question is this: the distance from the closet to the fermenter along the wall would be approximately 33 feet. If I used insulated tubing, would traveling that distance at normal room temperatures cause the glycol mix to be too warm to effectively chill the beer to any fermentation temperature I might choose—including cold enough to lager? Or could this work?

 

[Biobrewer]

This would be a good question for the chiller folks. So long as the tubing is very well insulated and the pump used is strong enough to move liquid over that distance in the specific ID of the tubing, I think you'd be good to go. Commercial breweries move glycol incredible distances to and from fermentors. I think the biggest consideration would be ensuring that distance would not put too much strain on the pump.

Also, from the description it appears as though you will need to purchase the pump and the temperature controller for each vessel. The pumps are meant to be housed in the chiller body from what I can tell, but that needs to plug into the temperature controller, which can only be as far from the fermentor as the probe length allows. One consideration would be to keep the pump and temperature controller next to the fermentor, and run tubing from the chiller 33 feet away to the pump. That could work, but you would need/want to build a little pump housing.

I would draft a nice email to the chiller folks and see what they say. Good luck!

 

[dqbco89]

Thanks so much for the very thoughtful response. As a follow-up, I reached out to the folks at Penguin Chillers, and they assured me that the distance shouldn't present an issue with respect to the glycol temperature--that for most brewing applications they recommend setting the temp to 28 degrees, but that since the chiller has the capacity to go much lower than that, if I find that the temperature is rising, I could simply adjust the glycol temperature downward to compensate for the distance, esp. if I used insulated tubing.

As you anticipated, they suggested the limiting factor in this setup could potentially be the pump not being powerful enough to pump the glycol that distance and the issue of having the pump in a separate room from the controller/fermenter, since the controller would need to be connected to both the fermenter and the pump.

I reached out to Spike, and they explained that the controller could still be activated if the pump was in a separate room but connected to the controller via an extension cord. But they did not recommend using the pump to push the glycol that distance.

I also have a Chugger pump I use in my recirculating mash setup, so I reached out to Chugger to see if the pump could also be used for the glycol. They said no (without much of an explanation).

Long story short--I went ahead and bought the chiller and the conical and have decided to just rearrange some things in the living room to make space for the chiller. Though I'm sure I could have bought a dedicated pump suitable for this application, at the end of the day, this seemed cheaper and simpler.

 

[day_trippr]

Conical and chiller - in a living room?
Gotta be single...or have the world's chillest spousal unit...

Cheers!

 

[dqbco89]

Ha! Fortunately for me, it's the latter--I've got the best of both worlds. Though I must say, the Spike conicals do make beautiful decor

 

[schematix]

you're going to need a much more powerful pump than what penguin offers to push that far. their pump is quite fast under no load. i pumped the gycol out one day and it rocked through the gallon jugs in like 30 seconds a pop. However, with 1 fermenter and 1 coil attached, the flow rate is best described as a bare trickle.

also for that long of a run you'll need to insulate it for two reasons. one is that you'll lose a lot of cold over that distance (and the return line will also pick up heat from your room). the other is that the cold side gets condensation on it. i'm pretty sure insulation won't qualify as 'looks good'.

 

[Blazinlow86]

That's ALOT of money to spend to cool 5 gallons of liquid when you think about it. Have you considered a stainless brewbucket in one of those Nice wine fridges with the glass front? I have a cf15 and it's awesome but I got mine only because I do the 18g batches and 3 carboys was difficult to fit in my chest freezer and I didn't like splitting the yeast/dryhops. Cheers

 

[dqbco89]

Well I've already pulled the trigger on this and decided to keep the chiller in the same room as the fermenter--so it's a done deal at this point. I agree that this is an expensive setup--and almost certainly overkill for 5 gallon batches. I considered the brewbucket/wine fridge route and probably would have stuck to something along those lines if we planned to stay in our current apartment long term. But we plan with near certainty to move to a place with much more space in the next 2-3 years, at which time I will supplement the existing setup with additional fermenters and expand my brewery's capacity. Since my ideal setup up would be a glycol chiller hooked up to multiple fermenters, I decided I preferred to start realizing that vision now, and add to it later, rather than spend several hundred dollars on a setup I plan to replace in a few years (even though it would be less expensive right now than the conical/glycol combo). Plus, I unexpectedly got a summer bonus, so why not.

 

[Drumminguy81]

It will work far better with both units in the same room, I have my chiller next to my 3 conicals and the one furthest (by only a couple feet) works noticeably different than the closest. It struggles a little more cold crashing or lagering. The only issue I see with having your chiller in the living room is the heat it will put off. I dont have a penguin but my a/c chiller puts off quite a bit of heat when it cycles on. Almost like having a space heater in the room. It could make things a tad uncomfortable in the summer.. however you arent the first to have one in your living room so it cant be that bad. Congrats on the upgrades!

 

[Blazinlow86]

Well I've already pulled the trigger on this and decided to keep the chiller in the same room as the fermenter--so it's a done deal at this point. I agree that this is an expensive setup--and almost certainly overkill for 5 gallon batches. I considered the brewbucket/wine fridge route and probably would have stuck to something along those lines if we planned to stay in our current apartment long term. But we plan with near certainty to move to a place with much more space in the next 2-3 years, at which time I will supplement the existing setup with additional fermenters and expand my brewery's capacity. Since my ideal setup up would be a glycol chiller hooked up to multiple fermenters, I decided I preferred to start realizing that vision now, and add to it later, rather than spend several hundred dollars on a setup I plan to replace in a few years (even though it would be less expensive right now than the conical/glycol combo). Plus, I unexpectedly got a summer bonus, so why not.

As long as you follow thru on the plan to add more fermenters it wont be overkill. Might be obvious but I assume you bought the complete cooling kit with the insulated jacket also? I only ask as when you cold crash you will get alot of water dripping from your lines and conical. I would also suggest covering the floor with something more so with carpet as no matter how careful you are your gonna have wort spills when removing the tclamp accessories etc. Cheers and congrats. I LOVE my cf15. Get the carb stone too it's awesome.

 

[mongoose33]

If you end up getting the Penguin chiller, perhaps you can make a sort of cabinet/end table/some such next to the fermenter so you don't have to run the lines too far. They *will* sweat if there's any humidity of consequence unless, as @schematix says, you add additional insulation to the lines (standard pipe insulation will work if it's big enough inside).

 

[dqbco89]

Thanks all for the feedback. I ended up getting the full temp control kit from Spike, including the insulated jacket—so hopefully that takes care of the condensation issue. And I have a long, large desk, so I’m planning on putting the chiller underneath it on the side I use the least, with the conical right next to it. The conical and the chiller are both arriving this week, I’m pretty pumped!