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Glycol System Design - Need Advice

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  • Glycol System Design - Need Advice

    We recently obtained a small Kreyer 45 glycol chiller unit and would appreciate some input on how we might put it to use. It's a small 15k BTU unit with an internal pump (specs here)

    Our brewhouse is a small micro in the tropics. We have two 5BBL unitanks and two 7BBL unitanks. We hope to import a larger glycol unit soon but importation of refrigerant and/or refrigeration equipment is difficult to this country and this is what we were able to find. For the time being, we have to make this work.

    Our issue is this:

    The coolant outlet and inlet ports on the Kreyer are 1/2" ID with 3/4 NPT threads. With flow that restricted, we are having a tough time planning a solution for the use of headers and drops to each tank. We've discussed using a single outlet manifold and a single inlet manifold with equal length 1/4" ID drops and returns to each tank in favor of a header/drop setup. We are concerned with achieving remotely equal flow rates to each tank with a standard header/drop design, given the small size of the glycol outlet on the pump. As I understand it, the volume of flow 1/4" drops is approximately equal to one 1/2" line.

    Does this sound like the best option to temporarily patch something together?

  • #2
    Use the unit to chill a separate insulated cold glycol tank, so you have reserve thermal capacity, and then pump from the glycol tank through your loop. Then you can run whatever size headers you wish.

    How far from Dominical, Puntarenas are you?

    Regards,
    Mike Sharp

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    • #3
      That's exactly what I'm going to do. Great idea.


      We're about 5 hours north of Dominical if driving. Are you familiar with CR?

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      • #4
        An update -

        We are putting the final touches on the brewery next week and I believe I've finally settled on a design for our glycol system / cold liquor setup.

        Our cold room is very close to the tanks, so all the runs are short. I'm going to purchase a large potable water tank (~1000L) to place in the cold room, then use the chiller to cool the large plastic tank. I was thinking of getting a bunch of PEX and dropping it into the water tank to chill the liquid. I figured since pex is used in radiant heating applications it would work the other direction as well. Copper is hard to find down here and expensive when you finally do come across some.

        My question is this - if I have an approximately 1000L CLT, and I'd like to keep it around 30 degrees, how much 1/2" ID pex should I drop inside? 100ft? 250ft? The tank is about 1 meter in diameter and about 1 meter high.

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