Kegerator in place of glycol chiller

[kevbrandt]

Wasn't sure where to post this but I'm looking for feedback from HB'ers who have kegerators or keezers so this seemed the best place. I searched but couldn't find anything similar.

I have an SSBrewtech 14 gallon conical with the coil for temp control. Right now I'm using a cooler and swapping ice as possible with a small submersible recirculation pump to supply water to the coil. This works ok, except I'm in Texas and this set up is my garage.

I have a keezer next to the fermenter that sits at about 38 degrees. I'm wondering if anyone has a similar setup where they have placed a bucket or something similar in their keezer and then ran lines out to their fermenter? I feel like this may work. Otherwise I'm about to have a batch with some off temps because I cannot keep this thing cool enough.

Thanks!

 

[csantoni]

You’ll probably just wind up heating your keezer. Refrigerators and freezers don’t move enough heat to replace a glycol chiller. You’d be better off spending the time doing a DIY A/C glycol chiller, IMO.

 

[IslandLizard]

That! ^
The recovery rate for freezers is generally not enough to compensate for the demand of your conical, especially being out in the open in your hot garage. Even with super good insulation around the conical.

 

[kevbrandt]

Thanks guys. Guess this explains why I don't see people doing this.

 

[csantoni]

There are a couple of folks who managed to get something working I think but I wonder how equipment-specific their approaches ended up being. I did a proof of concept for this with a water reservoir and a mini-fridge and it was a total failure. I got myself a used penguin water chiller (basically a glycol chiller without the reservoir), made a cooler-based reservoir, and can maintain 40F in the fermenter in an 80F+ garage. That’s all I need.

 

[IslandLizard]

Thanks guys. Guess this explains why I don't see people doing this.

There's a thread on here (sadly I can't find it so fast) by a guy who built a glycol unit from a small chest freezer, IIRC. The whole freezer cavity is filled with glycol. Add a (small) pump, insulated tubing, connectors, fermenter insulation, and you're all set.

 

[Morgz]

There's a thread on here (sadly I can't find it so fast) by a guy who built a glycol unit from a small chest freezer, IIRC. The whole freezer cavity is filled with glycol. Add a (small) pump, insulated tubing, connectors, fermenter insulation, and you're all set.

This here would work, a large mass of fluid to a concentration that will stop the water freezing to the chest freezer walls. Ice is an insulator. It will also give direct contact to the evaporator coil to make it effective at heat transfer.

And your average chest freezer holds alot more fluid than your conical. Used as a buffer tank.
Good luck if you give it a go.

 

[madscientist451]

There's a thread on here (sadly I can't find it so fast) by a guy who built a glycol unit from a small chest freezer, IIRC. The whole freezer cavity is filled with glycol. Add a (small) pump, insulated tubing, connectors, fermenter insulation, and you're all set.

I definitely remember this. Or maybe it was somewhere else, but there are old treads about it here on HBT and over on Pro-brewer.com

 

[Bobby_M]

A good friend of mine filled an entire 9cuft chest freezer with glycol and attempted to pump it into a pair of conicals. The best it could do is drop both 10F below ambient temps and on the warmest of days, the glycol temp would rise to about 60F and the compressor never shut off. It's just not made for that kind of heat load.

 

[Jag75]

DIY glycol chiller is the way to go , unless you can dump a good chunk of dough. Mine cost about 3 -400$ and has been working great ........ dang it , I hope I didn't jinx myself