Chilling beer lines with main chiller

[Mills]

Hey all, my serving tanks are one floor above my glycol system for the brewhouse. Do I need to order a small glycol unit just for my beer lines, or can I tie into my main glycol system?

[troybinso]

We tie into our main glycol lines to chill the beer lines for a thirty foot run to the faucets. We have a separate loop for the beer line glycol which gets pushed around with a Little Giant pump. It's not really the best system, but it works most of the time.

[gitchegumee]

Go separate. Beer lines need stable cooling and your main glycol temperature will very likely fluctuate as you cool tanks. You don't need foamy beer lines when you want to pour. Good luck!

[liammckenna]

We use the glycol reservoir of our main cooling system. It is 1200L in size.

Separate pump and line from the reservoir.

No issues. must shut down this circulation loop for line cleaning.

Pax.

Liam

[jimvgjr]

The issue people have trying to branch directly from their main glycol loop to their tapline is getting enough circulation and temperature control. The chiller glycol pump is sized for high volume at low pressure, the tapline circuit needs a high pressure pump at a lower flowrate.

I will agree with the previous posts, a dedicated pump off your primary chiller glycol tank is likely the best bet, but if at all possible I'd probably follow Phillip's suggestion and invest in a dedicated system.

Good Luck,

Jim

[mmussen]

A problem you can also run into is if you're planning on using your primary glycol to help cool your wort during knock out. If you're doing that I would recommend a dedicated glycol chiller as glycol temperature will quickly increase and cause lots of foaming. If your glycol resivior is large enough you might be able to get away with it, ours is not.

[Mills]

What size is yours?

[gitchegumee]

Our glycol chiller is 1,400 liters. It's not so much about size. The bigger they are, the longer they take to cool down. And the glycol rises from around -5C to +10C when we use it to cool lager wort in second stage of our heat exchanger. Also rises to around +4C when we crash cool a fermenter. We keep our glycol cooling loop at -5C and our beer line chiller at 2C. If you likewise have a line cooling loop at 2C, will that be cool enough to use as your fermenter cooling?