Wort Chiller question

[phoenixs4r]

I am designing a fermentation chamber using a stand up freezer. The theory is to have my 2 carboys sitting on the bottom of the freezer, in there own seperate insulated chambers so that I can keep everything above them at below freezing, and pump in cool air as to cool the wort warms up during fermentation.

Now, with all that room above the carboys at either freezing or sub freezing, I"m thinking about setting up a shelf, and filling a container with glycol, allowing the glycol to cool, and using that container as a odd counter flow chiller. Running the hot wort through a copper line submerged in the sub freezing temp glycol and then coming out of the container straight into the carboy.



My question is. Do you think the chiller idea will work? Mainly I'm wondering how large of a glycol bath I have to have the copper pipe submerged in so it doesn't heat up too quickly leaving me with hot wort.


Any thoughts?

 

[dime1622]

Why would you need to chill your wort once its in the fermentation chamber? The fermenting beer won't heat up that much, and doesn't really need to be sent through anything. This sounds like a really tough system to control.

 

[phoenixs4r]

I was talking about before it reaches the carboy if you are referring to glycol chiller part.

If your talking about pumping in cold air into the fermentaion chamber part, thats just to keep the temp steady. California's summer has been really weird this year. Seems like its steady at 65 degrees, until I brew and ferment, then it gets up to 100, lol. Also, I would like to do a single fermentation vessel and cold crash when fermentation is complete, then open up the indivdual chamber to siphon into my keg so I don't stir anything up. I'm really lazy and I have a very bad back. This will also allow me to do a lager and an ale at the same time if the mood strikes me.

 

[dime1622]

I see what you're trying to say. I still would think you'd have problems with controlling your temperatures. What if you run the wort through your glycol chiller and when all is said and done it comes out at 88 deg? Yes, you can always wait to pitch, but I'd think you'd be hard-pressed to bring in the wort at perfect pitching temperature. Things may have to set to cool down/warm up since it'll already be in the carboy. Will you use temperature controllers to regulate pumping cool air into the fermentation chambers?

 

[phoenixs4r]

What if you run the wort through your glycol chiller and when all is said and done it comes out at 88 deg?

Exactly what I was wondering. That was the original intention of my post, to see if anyone had tried this and to see if how big of a glycol bath I would need to make it work and or if it was worth doing.

I could always control the flow to make sure it chills down to pitching, but my main concern is knowing if the glycol will heat up too quickly, and I get pitching temperatures to start, and end up with the second half the batch coming out of the chiller at 100+!

Will you use temperature controllers to regulate pumping cool air into the fermentation chambers?

I will have a total of 3 temperature controllers running. 1 in each carboy in a thermowell regulating the fans from the freezer and or heater if neccesary, and 1 in the main freezer section above the carboys keeping the tempearture at or below freezing, depending on if I decide this chiller idea is a good one or not.

 

[dime1622]

I could always control the flow to make sure it chills down to pitching, but my main concern is knowing if the glycol will heat up too quickly, and I get pitching temperatures to start, and end up with the second half the batch coming out of the chiller at 100+!

My thoughts exactly.

I will have a total of 3 temperature controllers running. 1 in each carboy in a thermowell regulating the fans from the freezer and or heater if neccesary, and 1 in the main freezer section above the carboys keeping the tempearture at or below freezing, depending on if I decide this chiller idea is a good one or not.

Neat idea? Yes. Hard to implement? Yes. Cool if it works? Definitely.

TBH, if I were you, I'd forget the internal wort chiller part and just attempt the fermentation chambers. But that's me, and not you

 

[BetterSense]

It sounds like you are planning on using the freezer at freezing temps and then trying to insulate the fermenters. That won't work. Eventually the fermenters will also freeze unless you put heaters in them, which seems kind of silly.

 

[phoenixs4r]

It sounds like you are planning on using the freezer at freezing temps and then trying to insulate the fermenters. That won't work. Eventually the fermenters will also freeze unless you put heaters in them, which seems kind of silly.

Hm... I guess I'll have to build the fermenation chamber outside of the freezer and run piping to each chamber. Hadn't thought about that till now. Actually, that would be better because it would allow me to expand and do more carboys later on, or different design chambers when I build my conical out of a corny.

Thanks for inspring the idea!