Keezer cooling source for conical

[swanwick]

I just bought the ssbrewtech chronical BME (waiting for it to arrive) that takes liquid in through the side and wraps around inside the fermentor to cool/heat as needed. I am going to build my own cooling system with an inkbird, fermwrap, and aquarium pump. Cooling water source will be inside my keezer next to the fermentor.

Question I have is what is best way to set up the cooling vessel inside the kegerator? How big a container should I use? What shape? I could use a brewing pot. Have an 8gal and a 20gal. Larger will have less surface area per volume but smaller will heat up faster from warmer water return from fermentor.

Was thinking maybe have a large bucket (how big to go?) and then also have a smaller flatter tray that the return line sits in with water to act like a DIY chiller before returning to the main bucket.

Any thoughts?

 

[HausBrauerei_Harvey]

I did something like this (see my build link in my signature), I also fretted over the container, but found that a simple 5-gallon homer bucket on the hump did what I needed. I plan to build something out of sheet metal to fit on the hump and i'll get better heat exchange than a bucket, but you could simply do some tests with water and see how it performs, which is what I did initially.

also FWIW, I found my setup is really good at maintaining temps during fermentation, but has a harder time bringing wort temp down if I dont get it to pitching temp with my CFC.

 

[swanwick]

Currently running a ferment with a 5 gallon bucket. It fits on the hump without tipping, but just barely. I am finding that it is way more than I need to maintain ferment temp within an already temp controlled home. 2 or 3 gallons would probably be completely fine.

5 gallons will likely become useful for cold crashing and would be useful if needed to complete initial wort cooling before pitching.

 

[HausBrauerei_Harvey]

Glad it worked. I keep intending to do something more elegant than a homer bucket on the hump (I planned to make a vessel out of galvanized hvac ducting so I get better cold tranfer to the cooling water), but the bucket works well and 2 years later i'm still rocking the homer bucket.

 

[jddevinn]

you're probably going to have issues with being able to hold a cold crash temp.

If you have $200 to spare you could build a glycol chiller out of a window A/C and cooler for that price or less.

 

[maazak]

Why not use a spare metal keg as the liquid container? Fill it with actual glycol instead of water for better cooling

 

[jddevinn]

Why not use a spare metal keg as the liquid container? Fill it with actual glycol instead of water for better cooling

Glycol actually is worse at heat transfer than water....just better at not freezing.

 

[swanwick]

you're probably going to have issues with being able to hold a cold crash temp.

Assuming I have a keezer with an external conical containing 11gallons and an internal cooling coil that is being fed from the liquid in the keezer.......what combination of the items below is recommended for cold crashing?

• What liquid?
• What quantity?
• What temp?

Or,

1. should I take the hit and transfer into buckets/carboys and cold crash in the keezer and then transfer again to kegs?
2. transfer to kegs directly and suck out the cold crash particles from the first draw of the keg after hooking up c02, but before it fully carbonates.?

 

[jddevinn]

Assuming I have a keezer with an external conical containing 11gallons and an internal cooling coil that is being fed from the liquid in the keezer.......what combination of the items below is recommended for cold crashing?

• What liquid?
• What quantity?
• What temp?

Or,

1. should I take the hit and transfer into buckets/carboys and cold crash in the keezer and then transfer again to kegs?
2. transfer to kegs directly and suck out the cold crash particles from the first draw of the keg after hooking up c02, but before it fully carbonates.?

I have a 5000BTU/hr glycol chiller (made out of a window A/C) with about 15gallons of glycol/water mixture as the reservoir. I keep the reservoir at 20°F + 10°F before the chiller activates. Keeping one conical of ~12 gallons at a 33°F +1°F setpoint the glycol chiller activates for a minute or two every 30 minutes or so, with multiple conicals cold crashing or hotter ambient temps the cycles are a bit more frequent.

Using a reservoir of water in a freezer you have the issue of, the freezer is much less than 5000BTY/HR, the heat exchange between your reservoir and the freezer is MUCH less than a chiller with coils emerged in the coolant. Without doing any math I just don't think that you will be able to keep up with the heat exchange between the freezer and coolant required to maintain a cold crash temp.

 

[LBussy]

I have a 5000BTU/hr glycol chiller (made out of a window A/C) with about 15gallons of glycol/water mixture as the reservoir. I keep the reservoir at 20°F + 10°F before the chiller activates. Keeping one conical of ~12 gallons at a 33°F +1°F setpoint the glycol chiller activates for a minute or two every 30 minutes or so, with multiple conicals cold crashing or hotter ambient temps the cycles are a bit more frequent.

Do you happen to have a thread on your setup, or know of a similar one? I'm interested in how a window AC becomes a glycol chiller.

 

[jddevinn]

Do you happen to have a thread on your setup, or know of a similar one? I'm interested in how a window AC becomes a glycol chiller.

There are a couple threads on this, look at this one for some exampes. The thread is about plastic conicals using glycol chillers but gets derailed to just glycol talk. There is also a BYO article on it. http://byo.com/mead/item/1877-build-your-own-glycol-fermenter

Basically you pull the condenser (part that cools the air) out of the unit and place it in a glycol bath so it directly cools the glycol and control the A/C activation with temp control.

 

[LBussy]

There are a couple threads on this, look at this one for some exampes. The thread is about plastic conicals using glycol chillers but gets derailed to just glycol talk. There is also a BYO article on it. http://byo.com/mead/item/1877-build-your-own-glycol-fermenter

Basically you pull the condenser (part that cools the air) out of the unit and place it in a glycol bath so it directly cools the glycol and control the A/C activation with temp control.

Thank you sir, very cool! I won't derail this thread further but this is the first I've seen anyone DIY that so I had to ask.