Heating (not cooling) with Glycol

[nicoharris]

Hi,

I have a fermenter that must be kept at 90 degrees (not for beer--butanol). I am trying to figure out the best way to control the temperature. Ideas I have so far are to use a hot water heater in conjunction with a heat exchanger that is controlled by a ranco temp. controller (which has a probe that will sit in the fermenter), or to use a heated reservoir controlled by a t12 temp. sensor and the ranco controller.

Any ideas?

Thanks!

 

[orangehero]

Don't see any need to use glycol, unless you just mean the jacket or coils where the glycol would be used for cooling.

Have you thought about moving it to a warm place and wrapping it up in blankets?

 

[day_trippr]

How is the fermenter constructed? If it's single wall stainless steel, some kind of electric heat wrap in direct contact with the vessel (and then covered with insulation) controlled by the Ranco would probably be simplest...

Cheers!

 

[thargrav]

Hi,

I have a fermenter that must be kept at 90 degrees (not for beer--butanol). I am trying to figure out the best way to control the temperature. Ideas I have so far are to use a hot water heater in conjunction with a heat exchanger that is controlled by a ranco temp. controller (which has a probe that will sit in the fermenter), or to use a heated reservoir controlled by a t12 temp. sensor and the ranco controller.

Any ideas?

Thanks!

How large is the fermenter and how close to 90F do you need to be?

If you need to stay at +/- 1 degree F then you'll need some type of submerged coil carring water or glycol at 90 degrees F. Then you'll need to maintain your "heater" and reserve tank at better than +/- 1 degree F, probably +/- 0.5 degrees F.

 

[audger]

probably the easiest thing to do would be to get a 5-10 gal electric hot water heater, set it to 90 or 92 degrees (figure out how much offset you need later), and run a circulator pump to move the water around the vessle you need heated.