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Glycol cooling vs heating

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  • Glycol cooling vs heating

    Greeting Collective,

    I'm just about finished with my permitting process to open up here in Ketchikan, Alaska. I'll be starting out small two with 7bbl jacketed fermenters. The brewing area doesn't have heat, but still manages to maintain temps in the 40's to 50's during the winter months and roughly 60's in the summer when the outdoor temps are maybe in the 70's for about six weeks. Which makes me wonder if it's at all possible to heat with a glycol chiller. I'm worried about the beer fermenting to cold, especially when I want to produce wheat beers.
    I could heat the building with electric heaters, but heating the air only to cool the beer seems like a waste of energy to me.
    Has anyone else had this issue?
    Alex

  • #2
    Its called a heat pump, a refrigeration system that can run in two ways. Problem is, glycol systems provide chilled water that is used at multiple points, and have a large volume of liquid. So assuming that your tanks only needed heating or cooling, never one tank needing cooling and one getting heating, the only thing that would suck is having to heat a volume of liquid that is at 28F up to 70 or 80 F and then heating your tanks. The reverse would happen when you needed cooling. You would basically be spending energy to heat and cool the liquid each time before you can even heat or cool the tank.
    You could have two separate systems running glycol, one for heating and one for cooling, then the tanks decide which system to use, this would be better I think.
    The best thing would be to just keep the building heated to say 55, the heat of fermentation will keep a good fermenter plenty warm.

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    • #3
      A 7 bl, well-insulated FV should have no problem maintaining temp with the heat of fermentation alone. Be sure your cast-back is at the proper temp to start with.

      We have two long, skinny FVs that stick halfway out of the roof. Our winter temps can hit -20F, and are often sub-zero for a week or more at a tme. We cool them, even in the depths of winter.
      Timm Turrentine

      Brewerywright,
      Terminal Gravity Brewing,
      Enterprise. Oregon.

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      • #4
        I should think with plant that size and good yeast and oxygenation you won't have any problem achieving fermentation temperature - the yeast should do the rest. If wort needs heating during fermentation, you probably need to think about moving production south...

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        • #5
          Thanks for all the great input you guys. I really appreciate it

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