Simple Glycol Pre-Chiller

[schiersteinbrewing]

I was sitting here about to go get ice for my pre-chiller, and had an idea. Its West Texas and summer my tap water is 80 deg. So I usually go get 20lbs of ice add water and stick pre-chiller in that, then connect my wort chiller to pre-chiller after I drop to 90-100 deg. I was looking at glycol chillers and the price tag is crazy. Then it hit me what about putting a bucket of glycol in my chest freezer and keeping it well below freezing. Instead of going to get ice just place my pre-chiller into the glycol bucket and operate it as if I were using ice. I don't see why this wouldn't work, unless the water passing through the pre-chiller freezes before it has time to pass through the pre-chiller. Advantages I could get my tap water down to a much colder temps, and don't have to mess with getting ice each time. Currently my main chiller is a immersion chiller (Jaded Hydra) but am looking at getting a CFC, pre-chiller is a 25ft 3/8in copper immersion chiller.

Any thoughts or suggestions?

 

[LarMoeCur]

Why not just buy a cheap harbor frieght pump and run the glycol in a loop through your chiller? Not sure how much volume of water/glycol you will need to chill the wort but it's got to be more effective then pre chilling the water.

 

[schiersteinbrewing]

Why not just buy a cheap harbor frieght pump and run the glycol in a loop through your chiller? Not sure how much volume of water/glycol you will need to chill the wort but it's got to be more effective then pre chilling the water.

With a CFC I bet the amount of glycol needed wouldn't be but 7-10 gal, I only do 5 gal batches.

 

[Drumminguy81]

I built a diy glycol system with a window ac unit and an ice chest. I use the glycol for temp control in my fermenters and to pre chill my ground water. I have 2 plate chillers one has the glycol hooked up with a harbor freight sump pump to circulate it and my ground water goes through the chiller and then to my second plate chiller to chill the wort. It works great, I chill 20 gallons from boil to ~75 in a single pass under 20minutes. I also have very warm ground water in the summer here in new mexico. The only issue I see with doing the glycol tub in a freezer method is it will take a long time for the glycol to cool back down just using the air in the freezer to cool it vs having the glycol in direct contact with the chiller coil like my setup.