Using portable beverage chiller as glycol chiller

[cbier60]

I have found a used remote cooler that is used for chilling up to 4 beer lines at events for a great price. It is more of a glorified jockey box in that it will chill 4 beer lines, but is not intended to pump glycol to an external fermenter. There is a pump to circulate the water/glycol bath, which I assume is normally used to maintain the bath temperature. It seems to me that in the best case, I could use an additional controller for the pump to control the fermenter temp, and let the built in 2-stage controller control just the compressor. Worst case, I add an additional pump and controller for the fermenter. In the future, if I wanted to control more than one fermenter (up to 4), I could run the glycol through the beer coils and control each line separately.

Has anyone ever done anything similarly? Any suggestions or caveats?

This is a newer version of the unit shown in the background. The manual for the chiller's controller is attached.

 

[smcinco]

That is essentially what Brewha ships with their units. Their chillers are made by a Czech co. named Lindr. I just bought a Brewha. I'd imagine there would be tons of complaints if it didnt work but what do I know? Glycol seems like the better option but if the price is right I say go for it.

 

[cbier60]

Thanks, @smcinco. It looks like that is exactly what the Brewha/Lindr chiller is. I'm going for it. I think the only thing I need to do is hook up and use my inkbird or other controller for the pump. I will defer on the glycol as well, as water will be fine except for some time on chilling a lager.