Glycol towers

[Merleti]

I have a gylcol cooled tower. What is the best way to use it without having the glycol chiller? Do you use glygol with it cooled at keg temps or do you even need to use glycol with temps above 32?

 

[milldoggy]

I use a mini fridge with rv antifreeze, but water would work, and 12$ eBay DC pond pump to cycle fluid through it

 

[dsniegocki]

It would depend on how far you're running it... glycol isn't necessary unless your reservoir is in a freezer, and even then you only need about 10% glycol with your water.

Fridge temps would probably work if it's a short run, and your reservoir had decent volume.

 

[Merleti]

milldoggy thank you before I may ramble. I have a RV pump that does 4 LPM . I am only pumping 3ft max. The tower has copper tubbing , I live in central FL.

 

[jddevinn]

I have a old 10 tap perlick tower that I refurbished. It sits on top of the bar and the freezer slides underneath. I have the coolant lines ran into a small 3 gal bucket that sits in the freezer with the kegs filled with water. An stc-1000 controls when the pump is on. I had to replace the insulation in the tower so the temp prob sits at the end of the coolant run inside the new insulation. The pump runs maybe 25% of the time. It is more dependent on direct sunlight on the manifold than ambient temp.

I do have a glycol chiller that I use with my fermenters but there is no need to plumb into the tower.

 

[Merleti]

jddevinn Thank you. I have Perlick as well. It is the Century beer system. No worries my fermentation system is seperate. My tower is 3 I'm hoping my beer is better than your 10?

 

[jddevinn]

The century is what I have as well. I ended up running PBW and a couple other cleaners though the system for probably 10-20 hours before I was satisfied it was actually clean. Perlick still sells the shanks for this too (part number C27849SS)... took me forever to find. I got the pullout very cheap but spent a good amount of $ and labor (polishing out the ss) to get it back running.

The manifold that is in the insulation was held in place with plastic clips and the taps had plastic clips around the shanks. They were in bad condition and I replaced both w SS washers.

 

[Merleti]

WoW Is that a Euro vac under the great stuff?

 

[Merleti]

WoW look like you are about ready to serve?

 

[jddevinn]

Thanks! Nope its just a normal shop vac helps cleaning the mash tun, getting the last little bit of water out of the HLT and for spills.

 

[Merleti]

Sorry back to the cooling. What pump are you using and how many feet?

 

[jddevinn]

I have a small garden fountain pump in a 3 gal bucket placed in the keezer. The tower I have has (2) different cooling loops. I hooked them in series and have a temp probe embedded in the insulation near the last tap. I find about -3°F set point below the keezer works well to keep from cycling too much and to keep from pouring hot samples.

 

[Merleti]

Perfect. I bought a 12V diaphragm pump used for RV's, I tried it at 9v and it still a little loud. Looks like I'll switch to a fountain pump. Thanks