skraeling
Scientist Extraordinaire
- Joined
- Sep 26, 2013
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Ill warn you now. This is going to be a long post (probably).
So now that I have my keezer built, which was an awesome project I might add I find myself now of course constantly tweaking the hell out of things. The first subject I want to touch on is thermowells. Design / placement / theory.
Now a thermowell is pretty easy to setup in these. Some leave it in the air, some do a small vial of water, some tape it to a keg or what have you. Setting up my first thermowell I had just a probe taped to the side of the keg. I wasnt completely in love with this setup as I seem to be removing them a lot (taking to parties or fiddling with something inside). I also didnt like how long it made the compressor run and how much it seemed to drop the overall internal temperature (sometimes almost to at or below freezing). Now the overall effect of that may or may not have been bad, but I didnt want to risk anything freezing up let alone ice building up anywhere inside the keezer itself due to the longer compressor cycle.
This lent me to doing some googling. I found this site where a guy had done some actual data logging. Le Link. My own data logging seemed to match up almost exactly with what he found.
One other wrinkle that I found out which he didnt cover (among not covering what his differential cooling number was set to) is that having the fan inside the keezer drastically changes the times and cycle values depending on where you have the fan AND probe.
I decided doing his tape to a can method, but in addition to that also shoving the can into a coozy. I also have my fan mounted on the opposite side of where my probe is placed. Im not sure of the overall effect this will have long term.
Going off memory here, but my compressor runs for roughly ~11.5mins and then kicks off for the next 1hr15mins or so. I find this to be pretty acceptable. Before it kicks on the internal air temp is roughly ~42* Not awful really as its just the air temp.
Now this leads me to another question. I did have some foaming with the flow control wide open on the first pour. My question is. Is the fan I have not powerful enough to circulate the colder air around the hoses? Also what to do with hose placement. As of now they just sit on top of the kegs. Maybe I should run them down low... arg. Im at roughly 11psi and 10ft lines so its not awful, but something I need to probably tweak some more. Anyway back to the fan. It being winter, I cant find any damn small desk fans for sale anywhere other than amazon. I think that should provide plenty of airflow over the tiny 120mm I have right now. I think it simply isnt moving enough air for my taste across the entirety of the total keezer volume. It just blows straight down right now. I may try having it blow cold air up to see what that does for things. Sadly my knowledge of science is limited to living things and not things more applicable to this such as the various engineering fields. I couldnt tell you the first thing about airflow patterns inside a keezer and honestly dont now how to discern them anyway. Do I need a fan pointing both vertically and horizontally? I could see this being viable. I think with all the stuff in there I wont get really any true air circulation going at all unless I have multiple and or higher CFM fans. I may end up building the various PVC contraptions ive seen on here too. Though Im not sure if losing 2" of depth would be very fun so I need to measure to make sure I dont run into any issues with clearance.
Now back to compressor cycles once again. I just dont know enough about these compressors to really have an educated guess on what exactly the normal operating cycle is like for them. Id be curious to see just how long between cycling a freezer actually cycles. It has to be MUCH longer than once every hour and a half right? Though I suspect it would vary with the frozen load already inside + it being summer or winter etc.
I know longer times between compressor cycling is only going to be better for it in the long run and frankly I want this thing to last a few years at minimum. Im sure my compressor cycles will go down even shorter once I actually have 4 kegs full of beer in there. Currently its only 1.2 kegs full as the .2 is mostly empty now.
Apologies for the brain dump fellow DIYer's
So now that I have my keezer built, which was an awesome project I might add I find myself now of course constantly tweaking the hell out of things. The first subject I want to touch on is thermowells. Design / placement / theory.
Now a thermowell is pretty easy to setup in these. Some leave it in the air, some do a small vial of water, some tape it to a keg or what have you. Setting up my first thermowell I had just a probe taped to the side of the keg. I wasnt completely in love with this setup as I seem to be removing them a lot (taking to parties or fiddling with something inside). I also didnt like how long it made the compressor run and how much it seemed to drop the overall internal temperature (sometimes almost to at or below freezing). Now the overall effect of that may or may not have been bad, but I didnt want to risk anything freezing up let alone ice building up anywhere inside the keezer itself due to the longer compressor cycle.
This lent me to doing some googling. I found this site where a guy had done some actual data logging. Le Link. My own data logging seemed to match up almost exactly with what he found.
One other wrinkle that I found out which he didnt cover (among not covering what his differential cooling number was set to) is that having the fan inside the keezer drastically changes the times and cycle values depending on where you have the fan AND probe.
I decided doing his tape to a can method, but in addition to that also shoving the can into a coozy. I also have my fan mounted on the opposite side of where my probe is placed. Im not sure of the overall effect this will have long term.
Going off memory here, but my compressor runs for roughly ~11.5mins and then kicks off for the next 1hr15mins or so. I find this to be pretty acceptable. Before it kicks on the internal air temp is roughly ~42* Not awful really as its just the air temp.
Now this leads me to another question. I did have some foaming with the flow control wide open on the first pour. My question is. Is the fan I have not powerful enough to circulate the colder air around the hoses? Also what to do with hose placement. As of now they just sit on top of the kegs. Maybe I should run them down low... arg. Im at roughly 11psi and 10ft lines so its not awful, but something I need to probably tweak some more. Anyway back to the fan. It being winter, I cant find any damn small desk fans for sale anywhere other than amazon. I think that should provide plenty of airflow over the tiny 120mm I have right now. I think it simply isnt moving enough air for my taste across the entirety of the total keezer volume. It just blows straight down right now. I may try having it blow cold air up to see what that does for things. Sadly my knowledge of science is limited to living things and not things more applicable to this such as the various engineering fields. I couldnt tell you the first thing about airflow patterns inside a keezer and honestly dont now how to discern them anyway. Do I need a fan pointing both vertically and horizontally? I could see this being viable. I think with all the stuff in there I wont get really any true air circulation going at all unless I have multiple and or higher CFM fans. I may end up building the various PVC contraptions ive seen on here too. Though Im not sure if losing 2" of depth would be very fun so I need to measure to make sure I dont run into any issues with clearance.
Now back to compressor cycles once again. I just dont know enough about these compressors to really have an educated guess on what exactly the normal operating cycle is like for them. Id be curious to see just how long between cycling a freezer actually cycles. It has to be MUCH longer than once every hour and a half right? Though I suspect it would vary with the frozen load already inside + it being summer or winter etc.
I know longer times between compressor cycling is only going to be better for it in the long run and frankly I want this thing to last a few years at minimum. Im sure my compressor cycles will go down even shorter once I actually have 4 kegs full of beer in there. Currently its only 1.2 kegs full as the .2 is mostly empty now.
Apologies for the brain dump fellow DIYer's
