venting / bleeding glycol loop, vents at each drop?

[morrillt]

I see that most designs have a bleed / purge vale at base of supply line for plumbing the pump.

It has been suggested to me by a friend to also install bleed valves at the top of each fermenter, because he is saying that when ever you have drops you have air traps.

Might it make sense to also install air bleed valves at each dropdown, or does this not make sense / offer no value?

Here is a diagram outlaying his suggestion: http://www.evernote.com/shard/s210/s...003e68d9b58545


Thanks,
Todd

[PFL]

Move the tee and valve on the green (supply side)from the top to the bottom of the tank so that you can isolate the tank and drain the glycol if you need to (you also only need a vent on the return side). Also, you could eliminate the jacket valves on the return side since you don't ever want to restrict or close those.

[nickfl]

How big is the fermenter in question? In my experience a lot of this is only really an issue for big tanks. If you are talking about 30-60BBL or smaller, you probably don't need to make it so complicated. If you don't have multiple temperature controllers for separate zones, what is the point of plumbing the jackets in series? Again with smaller tanks at least, you can just plumb the jackets in series, with the supply inlet at the lowest point and the outlet at the top, this may go against theory, but in practical applications it eliminates air bubbles and works well for tanks under 75BBL or so.

[morrillt]

thanks fhe feedbacks

This would be for 20bbl tanks, maybe 30bbl expansion tanks later....

2" header

1" drop down

3/4" run to each jacket.

[Starcat]

Open Loop Systems

Microbrewery Glycol systems are for the most part designed with the return wells to run at atmospheric pressure. This means they are not pressurized on the return side. If your pump and piping are put in even half way correct, there is never a need for such.
As thus they do NOT need and should not need air bleed devices EVER for ANY reason!
Open loops typically never need air bleed devices. This idea is an attempt to reinvent the wheel and make things more complicated and mysterious than they are.