glycol straight into evaporators

[ballen]

We have loads of extra capacity on our 100 ton and 70 ton glycol chillers and would like to forgo compressors on our cold storage room altogether and simply run glycol through the evaporators to cool the space.

Does anyone have any experiences they would care to share and / or manufacturer suggestions.

Thanks in advance

Brian
Brian Allen
Mother's Brewing Co
Springfield, MO

[BeersmithMT]

Brian,

We refrigerate our cold room via our glycol system. Just make sure you use evaporators specifically made for glycol. The flow & volume requirements are significantly different than gas based evaporators. We have a Larkin evaporator, their manufacturer website is: http://www.larkinproducts.com/produc...ew.asp?pid=224

Pro-Refrigeration is the moderator of this thread and can also help you size & source the appropriate evaporator for your system.

[jimvgjr]

Hi Brian,

Please send over room dimensions (with height) and we can size up some heat exchangers for the room(s).

Here are some points I recently sent to a customer in regards to Glycol Cooled Cold Rooms:

We offer Glycol Heat Exchangers, instead of the direct expansion refrigeration evaporators for Cold Room Cooling. Some advantages and differences are:

• Simplified Installation. Glycol Heat Exchangers are controlled the same way as Fermenters, using a solenoid valve that opens when room temperature increases and closes when room reaches desired temperature.
• Eliminates Refrigerant Lines inside your plant. All of your refrigerant lines are centralized within the chiller system, reducing service issues, total refrigerant charge, and installation costs.
• Maintain cold Room within 8 F of Glycol operating Temperature. Most customers require a cold room temperature of 40 F, with a standard brewery glycol operating temperature in the 25-28 F- this is ideal application.
• Eliminate defrost clocks and iced up coils. Glycol Heat Exchangers have a larger surface area than standard refrigerant coils, so we can operate at a tighter Temperature Difference (glycol temperature to room air temperature)- this allows our coil temperature to be higher and greatly reduces icing and the need for scheduled defrost cycles.
• Chiller System can be shared for Fermenter/Brewery Load and Cold Room. Dual refrigeration circuit systems are suggested if our customers are using a single chiller system skid for both Brewery Cooling and Cold Room cooling to provide safety in redundancy.
• Glycol Heat Exchangers will remove moisture from the air as it cools, because the TD is smaller we will not remove as much moisture as standard systems. I’ve read about breweries that were concerned there could be condensation issues but haven’t had any such issues with the 20+ projects we have worked with.

Good Luck,

Jim
Pro Refrigeration Inc.