Anyone regret DIY AC glycol chiller?

[deprecated]

Wondering if anyone has switched from DIY AC glycol back to a chamber, and if so, why?

I've only seen one comment of someone giving up on it and I believe it was due to moisture/sweating lines that possibly could have been resolved with pipe insulation.

At the moment the pros seem to outweigh the cons but I'm curious of anyone else's experience.

 

[day_trippr]

Interesting question.

Because of the relative complexity vs a big fridge/freezer or an A/C "CoolBot" implementation, I would think almost everyone going the glycol route had a goal that was incompatible with air cooling...

Cheers!

 

[bajaedition]

Interesting question.

Because of the relative complexity vs a big fridge/freezer or an A/C "CoolBot" implementation, I would think almost everyone going the glycol route had a goal that was incompatible with air cooling...

Cheers!

I have to agree, with all the drawbacks of a glycol system you have to need it to use it. They are capable of doing their job, but are not cost effective because of the 2 extra heat transfer they require.

 

[hvjackson]

I have to agree, with all the drawbacks of a glycol system you have to need it to use it. They are capable of doing their job, but are not cost effective because of the 2 extra heat transfer they require.

Glycol chillers are not cost effective because they are a niche product. They actually are *more* effective at chilling, since water is a much better conveyer of heat than air (which is the medium that fermentation chambers / fridges use). Both a fermentation chamber and glycol chillers have the same number of heat transfers... in a ferm chamber, the compressor cools the air and the air cools the fermenter. With gylol, the compressor cools the water and the water cools the fermenter.

 

[brewslinger]

The only regret I have with my system is that I accidentally drilled through one of the cooling coils and broke my first heat exchanger.
I am finishing up rebuilding it now. Using pex and shark bite connectors to replumb it so is much nicer than the first build which was using vinyl tubing. My system is a 2 chamber system with the glycol cooler basically making a third zone to manage. They run independently though and each one has it's own settings. I am planning on releasing my software at some point which runs on a single D1 Mini and publishes stats to a MQTT topic. I have been reworking the system after I moved last year and rewiring it to use the BrewPi RJ12 connector format instead of my first idea of using headphone jacks. Currently I am recording the data with home assistant (home-assistant.io).

I can fit 4 fermenters in each chamber so I feel the effort over buying 4 of those tramontina 126 can coolers was worth it although I may buy a couple at some point since they look so nice and can fit under a table.
My chamber is taller than a refrigerator but just as wide and deep so it has more limitations on where it can live.

I do recommend replacing the fan on a window ac unit with multiple computer fans to reduce the noise unless you will have it somewhere it won't bother you. My old system would wake me up sometimes in the middle of the night since it lived in the garage which was close enough to hear.

 

[bajaedition]

Glycol chillers are not cost effective because they are a niche product. They actually are *more* effective at chilling, since water is a much better conveyer of heat than air (which is the medium that fermentation chambers / fridges use). Both a fermentation chamber and glycol chillers have the same number of heat transfers... in a ferm chamber, the compressor cools the air and the air cools the fermenter. With gylol, the compressor cools the water and the water cools the fermenter.

nope
glycol systems are not efficient because you need to have heat transfer 4 times , in a regular refrigeration system you have heat transfer to the refrigerant and then to the air or water, with a glyco; system it is to the refrigerant, then to whatever is transferring it to the glycol, then from that to the glycol, and then to the item the glycol is cooling. that is 4 times and each time you have a transfer it loses inefficiency.

in this system will be 5

first transfer, compressor to refrigerant
second transfer, refrigerant to the air in the refrigerator holding the tank
third transfer from the air to the glcol in the tank
forth transfer from the glycol to the tank holding the wort.
fifth transfer from the tank to the wort

so you see each transfer has loss in the system
that is why it is not cost efficient, not because it is a niche system.
They are used all over the place when the benefit of the system out priorities the loss. If you had a chamber that the conical fit in and was easy to use, then that would be a more efficient system. But if your area did not have room for a chamber, or the conical was to big for a system then the glydol system would work great.

Grocery stores use them in meat counters because putting the meat on a glycol cooled plate and not having a fan blowing cool air over the meat increases the shelf life of the meat in the case x 2. therefore they have twice the time to sell the meat before turning it into hamburger. I saves them a ton of money. They can afford the loss in BTU cooling capacity the system loses.

 

[hvjackson]

nope
glycol systems are not efficient because you need to have heat transfer 4 times , in a regular refrigeration system you have heat transfer to the refrigerant and then to the air or water, with a glyco; system it is to the refrigerant, then to whatever is transferring it to the glycol, then from that to the glycol, and then to the item the glycol is cooling. that is 4 times and each time you have a transfer it loses inefficiency.

in this system will be 5

first transfer, compressor to refrigerant
second transfer, refrigerant to the air in the refrigerator holding the tank
third transfer from the air to the glcol in the tank
forth transfer from the glycol to the tank holding the wort.
fifth transfer from the tank to the wort

[...]

I think we are talking about different things.

OP asked about DIY AC chillers, I assume there are talking about something like this, where a window AC unit is taken apart and the evaporator coils are immersed in the glycol solution: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=340950

Basically a homemade version of commercial glycol chillers, e.g. this nano-sized one from SS Brewtech (https://www.ssbrewtech.com/collections/accessories/products/glycol) or larger commercial units.

In all of these cases the compressor's evaporator coils are submerged directly in the glycol solution, there is no air involved at all. Since the glycol/water has a very high thermal capacity (much higher than air) they are extremely effective at cooling.

 

[Drumminguy81]

Im using one built like hvjackson is talking about. It works excellent. Actually faster than when I had my fermenter in a freezer as my chamber. Using a glycol system with a coil actually cools the wort not the vessel the wort is in. Plus it looks awesome if you have stainless conicals.

 

[helibrewer]

I have used a large (2' x 4' x 8') 3-section chamber with a CoolBot and window A/C unit for several years.

I am switching to a chest freezer for serving and the SS Brewtech glycol setup for fermentation.

The chamber is in my garage and with 90 degree summers it just wears out the A/C unit in about 12-18 months.

My end setup is 1/2 barrel SS BrewTech Chronical Brewmater, SS Glycol unit, 10 gallon SS Britetank. The Keezer will be a 3 tap for smaller batches.

 

[Gadjobrinus]

Old topic but it's come up on another forum, so it has brought me back around. One issue I have is that I want to primarily open ferment, making traditional British-style ales. I have a coolbot and large a/c but can't see that doing anything but sending cold, microbe-ridden air over the surface of the open fermentor and its wort. So I'm thinking of a DIY chiller, likely with a s/s internal attemperator.

 

[suprchunk]

Old topic but it's come up on another forum, so it has brought me back around. One issue I have is that I want to primarily open ferment, making traditional British-style ales. I have a coolbot and large a/c but can't see that doing anything but sending cold, microbe-ridden air over the surface of the open fermentor and its wort. So I'm thinking of a DIY chiller, likely with a s/s internal attemperator.

Maybe filter the room/chamber the fermentor is in? Kind of like how all commercial clean beers are open-fermented?

eta: sorry for drudging up an old topic, dang search results are funny...

 

[home-brew-dude]

Wondering if anyone has switched from DIY AC glycol back to a chamber, and if so, why?

I've only seen one comment of someone giving up on it and I believe it was due to moisture/sweating lines that possibly could have been resolved with pipe insulation.

At the moment the pros seem to outweigh the cons but I'm curious of anyone else's experience.

This is an old thread that I just stumbled into. Having built a DIY glycol chiller myself, I feel qualified to answer. IMO your question is like asking someone who just got their driver's license if they want to go back to riding a bike! I use mine with a Spike CF10 conical fermenter. You can see it here in my youtube video:



PS: The unit is VERY efficient, uses very little power (seldom has to run).

 

[TexasGuy]

@home-brew-dude thank you for doing this video. Very well done. One question, how are you managing to raise the temperature when needed? When I finally finish setting up in my garage, I’ll need to keep it warm as well.

 

[home-brew-dude]

@home-brew-dude thank you for doing this video. Very well done. One question, how are you managing to raise the temperature when needed? When I finally finish setting up in my garage, I’ll need to keep it warm as well.

Thanks for the nice note. I live in Tacoma, WA and have the brewery in my garage/shop where the temperature is fairly constant. Because of this, I don't really have to worry about warming things up, the ambient will do that. For ales I turn the chiller pump off and let the temperature naturally rise toward the end of fermentation, and for lagers it is always warm enough to support their temperature profile needs (I actually run the chiller to hold ~55 degrees). If you have a heat wrap (common for a carboy) you can control the heat side with the inkBird controller (I prefer that one over the STC1000 that we all use). For my Spike conical, they sell a heater that can be attached, but I don't need that.

 

[msjulian]

Old thread but I am getting ready to build my chiller using a dissembled window unit as seen in the video above. My system will be in my garage in southern Indiana so the in the winter the temp in the garage gets to 45 on the cold days. My plan is to use a nice sized submersible aquarium heater and heat the fluid to 80 and then pump that through the fermenter and control the temp in the winter. Brewing lagers @ 50 and most of my ales on the cool side (60-65) I think there should no issues.

 

[Tom R]

Old thread but I am getting ready to build my chiller using a dissembled window unit as seen in the video above. My system will be in my garage in southern Indiana so the in the winter the temp in the garage gets to 45 on the cold days. My plan is to use a nice sized submersible aquarium heater and heat the fluid to 80 and then pump that through the fermenter and control the temp in the winter. Brewing lagers @ 50 and most of my ales on the cool side (60-65) I think there should no issues.

I tried heating my glycol with what I thought was a quality aquarium heater. It died quickly. The Denord cartridge heater has been working perfectly for a couple years now.
https://www.amazon.com/DERNORD-Immersion-Cartridge-Heating-Replacement/dp/B074K98XR7

 

[rkhanso]

I'm glad I made a DIY chiller. I don't use Glycol, but only water in mine. It gets cold enough to cool the beer down to about 38F. My setup is the garage here on a hot, humid Minnesota day. Don't laugh. It gets to 90F and 90% humidity here with heat indexes over 100. The chiller is rock-solid.

For heating the 15 gal plastic conical in the cold MN winters, I use Ferm-Wrap heat tape stuff on the outside of the conical with insulation over it. It can keep the beer fermenting at mid-60s range when it's single digits in the garage.

I think it's a smaller setup than a fermentation chamber and easier to use since I don't have to move the 15 gal fermenter at all.

 

[Ridenour64]

I built one, and I would never go back to not having one. I would consider buying a legitimate one though down the road.

My problem with it is the metal around the evaporator coil keeps rusting and it’s causing the water in my cooler to turn brown and murky. It’s not necessarily a big issue because it will never touch my beer, but it still bugs me. I’ve tried flushing it, cleaning it, even recirculating PBW through the entire system. Still murks up every time. I just keep it as water as well and keep it at about 34. Gets my beer down to 40. I wish I could use glycol but I think it would be a waste because it would be gunked up in no time.

 

[msjulian]

So as with most of my DIY brewing projects I went a little overboard on my chiller. Good thing is I had all the parts but the heater laying around from other projects. Should end up with an 8 gallon reservoir. Got a little more wiring to do and charge the compressor. Thanks to Tom R for the heads up on the heater!

 

[Gruel]

Looks nice, with the aluminum profiles and the Lexan sides. The copper coil inside the yellow cooler is the evaporator? And for now you are just hooking up one secondary loop, with the pump sitting at the bottom of the cooler? That thing can probably drive a bunch of loops. If I ever get a garage or workshop, I might do something like that.

Today I hooked up a third vessel in series to my Peltier (non A/C) chiller, since I had to bring 5 gallon of Weissbier down from slightly above room temperature (27 C, 80 F) to fermenting temperature (16 C, 61 F). It took five hours, which is not bad, and drove the temperature of the two 5 gallon kegs on the same water/glycol loop only up by 1.5 C (3 F).
But separate loops would be more convenient.

Are you going to insulate your vessels (kegs, fermenters) individually, or are you building a common enclosure? I'm thinking I will stick with a common enclosure; it should make keeping moisture out easier.