Brew Hut Raising Weekend - 4/25

[WBC]

Ed, How big will the cold room be and have you figured how much wall thickness and how much cost per year to refrigerate. If I knew these things or how to figure it out I might be able to start planning my cold room. I know you are really busy but hope that you can shed some light on this as it becomes available.

 

[PeteOz77]

I was thinking of a standard beer line with stainless steel fittings for beer contact rather than copper. Don't you think the acidity of the beer sitting in the line might break down the copper? I thought salt water because it'd be cheaper than maintaining a bucket full of food grade glycol.

Yeah, that's a better idea than copper (and a LOT cheaper too!) I was just thinking of the temperature transfer characteristics of copper vs platic beer line, but if you are circulating cool water that is the same temp as the beer is upposed to be, it wouldn't be such a big deal. It's not like you are trying to cool it from 100° to 30°.

I didn't realise there was a food grade glycol, I just assumed that it was all TOXIC!

Ed, there is no reason you would need to purge or drain the system if you use plastic lines and some sort of coolant that won't get contaminated. You could even use one length of garden hose with a beer line running through it and just cut a slit in the hose out by the tap and silicone it shut, using the rest of the hose as a return line for the coolant.

A 5 gallon bucket of "coolant" sitting on the floor with a water feature pump in it would do the trick. Just turn the pump on 10 minutes before you are going to use the tap and all the beer in the line will be nice and cold! Only issue will be a second pressure regulator for that line, as it wil need more pressure than the rest eh?

 

[Loweface]

You could even use one length of garden hose with a beer line running through it and just cut a slit in the hose out by the tap and silicone it shut, using the rest of the hose as a return line for the coolant.

That would be what I had originally envisioned....

Oh and it doesn't have to be an open bucket in the cool room. That's just asking to get kicked over when swapping out the first or tenth keg!!!

If you plumbed the hose into some sort of metal box (like a small radiator) and bled it off as such, your cool room would keep that cool. Just gauge the size such that when you turn on the pump, and the reservoir and the line contents mix, you get minimal gain of heat across the complete system.

If you were to use say a garden hose of 1.5cm internal diameter, and a beer line with 1.1cm external diameter, you’d require approx 0.3L coolant per metre. Over 5 metres you’d need 1.5 Litres (this would be outside your cool room)

If you keep your cold room at 5C (40F) and your external temp wouldn’t exceed 35C (95F), to realise a temp increase of 1C over the system you’d need a reservoir of about 5Litres water per metre of line.

Of course realistically there won’t be such a swing in temp as most of the line will be insulated and indoors. If there were a swing of say 70F room temp to 40F cool room the reservoir only needs be about 1.3L per metre of beer line…

(That would be the initial swing without the need for turning on the pump in advance of a party)

Sorry for the long post!

 

[Sea]

Ed, How big will the cold room be and have you figured how much wall thickness and how much cost per year to refrigerate. If I knew these things or how to figure it out I might be able to start planning my cold room. I know you are really busy but hope that you can shed some light on this as it becomes available.

Do search for Heat/Cooling loss calculations for a dwelling. The calculations aren't that difficult, you mainly need to know minimum inside temp, max outside temp, R-values for the floor, ceiling, and walls, volume of the room, and infiltration factor (Leakage), to calculate the Btu/h load of the space.

 

[Sea]

I didn't realise there was a food grade glycol, I just assumed that it was all TOXIC!

Propylene Glycol is non-toxic, that doesn't mean you'd want it in your beer though

 

[Loweface]

Propylene Glycol is non-toxic, that doesn't mean you'd want it in your beer though

None of the coolant can contact the beer so it doesn't really matter what you choose. There was a good point about something to preserve/stop mould from growing if you used plain water though...

 

[jdoiv]

Salt water won't corrode copper. They put copper on the hulls of ships to prevent rusting the steel.

 

[Loweface]

Salt water won't corrode copper. They put copper on the hulls of ships to prevent rusting the steel.

That's a sacrificial metal in that the copper will corrode before the steel and as such prevents the corrosion of the steel hull...

 

[IrregularPulse]

This thread is getting to technical. Don't we all just wanna drool over pictures!!

 

[CodeRage]

That's a sacrificial metal in that the copper will corrode before the steel and as such prevents the corrosion of the steel hull...

Usually they use zinc block for sacrificial/inferior metal. I know they put copper in paint for bottom jobs as some kind of pesticide/herbicide to keep things from growing on the hull.

 

[Loweface]

This thread is getting to technical. Don't we all just wanna drool over pictures!!

Too right.... Pictures please if you have them...

 

[nathan]

Biggest issue with this house was venting it to the outside, as it was airtight.

I second that. We ended up installing special ventilation for that very reason. And my folks can put a handful of something in their wood stove, fire it up, and the house is hot for a week. When they have get togethers in the winter, we have to run the AC or open a window if there are very many people. That house is freakishly efficient.

Whoo Hoo, WiFi works in the Brewhaus. I'm typing this while in there. Not much of a signal, but that can be fixed.

NICE! Now you can use your computer as a juke box while running ProMash and surfing HBT during a mash!

 

[98EXL]

wow....what's happening this weekend?

 

[nyer]

I would just like to state that it takes a real man to walk around in the rafters wearing flip flops. Steel toe boot's are for woosies.

 

[EdWort]

wow....what's happening this weekend?

Texas Eggfest!!!

I'll get to work on the soffit on Sunday hopefully.

 

[98EXL]

Texas Eggfest!!!

I'll get to work on the soffit on Sunday hopefully.

that looks like mad fun

 

[tbulger]

I dont feel like looking through the whole thread but ED are you brewing inside that thing? or on the porch>

 

[EdWort]

I dont feel like looking through the whole thread but ED are you brewing inside that thing? or on the porch

Brewing inside, rain or shine, day or night, hot or cold.

The porch gets a ceiling fan a couple of hickory rocking chairs.

 

[pickles]

yeah we need more pics

 

[jzal8]

The porch gets a ceiling fan a couple of hickory rocking chairs.

I think that porch is my favorite part.

 

[BlindLemonLars]

Brewing inside, rain or shine, day or night, hot or cold.

I know you're installing A/C, are you planning to heat it as well? You could probably use wall-mount heat exchangers instead of air-conditioners, to serve both purposes.

OTOH, I guess your banjo burners will keep things pretty cozy.

 

[elkdog]

Sitting on that porch with a cold one poured from the flower box, watching the time so I don't miss the next hop addition sounds like a pretty sweet way to pass an afternoon.

 

[EdWort]

I know you're installing A/C, are you planning to heat it as well? You could probably use wall-mount heat exchangers instead of air-conditioners, to serve both purposes.

OTOH, I guess your banjo burners will keep things pretty cozy.

I have a wood burning stove we are going to put in there that we brought back from Germany. It's a Jøtel Ofen from Denmark. I don't know if we are going to use it or not, but it looks cool. I figure one of those electric oil radiator space heater will work fine in the winter since we do not have much cold weather with global warming and all that.

 

[EdWort]

Sitting on that porch with a cold one poured from the flower box, watching the time so I don't miss the next hop addition sounds like a pretty sweet way to pass an afternoon.

Yep. Some Bose outdoor speakers put up in the corners will help too.

 

[Guinness71]

Wow - thats an awsome project!..

Very impressive... I need to find some property with some land!

 

[tuckferrorists]

Yep. Some Bose outdoor speakers put up in the corners will help too.

In the immortal words of Peter Griffin......."ya bastahd"

 

[Bernie Brewer]

I figure one of those electric oil radiator space heater will work fine in the winter since we do not have much cold weather with global warming and all that.

Oh, please, please, don't do that. Have your Sparky neighbor hook up a real heater, like an in-the-wall fan heater or maybe a baseboard heater. Something that can be controlled with a line-voltage t-stat and won't burn down your really awesome brew hut.

 

[EdWort]

Oh, please, please, don't do that. Have your Sparky neighbor hook up a real heater, like an in-the-wall fan heater or maybe a baseboard heater. Something that can be controlled with a line-voltage t-stat and won't burn down your really awesome brew hut.

Do baseboard heaters run on 120 volt? If so, I can hook up a couple of those on the AC circuit and life will be good.

 

[kappclark]

Winter is my biggest challenge to anything resembling a BrewHut .. I would need some good source of heat, and would need to worry about freezing liquids ..

Going to Jenna's Wedding ?

 

[EdWort]

Going to Jenna's Wedding ?

Nah, I had to turn down the invite. It's a brew weekend.