[trapae]

I just got my new penguin glycol chiller set up, after doing a test run, just brewed a stout yesterday and things are going well.
I set the glycol temperature at 30° and the controller probe in my fermenter for 65° (For ale) with a 1° differential. Everything is working well however at 30°, it seems like it when the pump turns off it, the wort keeps getting colder down to at least 63°.   So I increased the glycol bath up to 50° to see what happens. Maybe less ping-pong around. Just wondering what everyone else says their glycol temperature at.  I will probably set it down to 27 when I’m cold crashing.

[KellerBrauer]

I’m not familiar with your setup, but typically you would want to run your glycol at just a few degrees lower than your desired load temperature - in this case 65° F.  The glycol should circulate continuously allowing the refrigeration equipment to cycle based on the fermentation temperature. If the glycol temperature is 30° the load (fermenter) will want to reach that same temperature.

I hope that makes sense.

[Thirsty_Monk]

In commercial brewery setting you set glycol temperature to 27F. You need to add enough glycol not to freeze the chiller -20F buffer.

Your fermenter would have a thermowell and solenoid that is controlled thru PID or Ranco/Johnson controller. 

When call to chill comes from fermenter controller, controller opens solenoid and let the cold liquid into a fermentation jacket.

You could have swing like you are talking about if your probe does not read correctly temp in the fermenter.

Another issue can be that your probe is too far from the cooling jacket and you have stratification in your fermenter.

Does that answer your question?

[trapae]

My set up is the following... I have a glycol chiller with a 50-50 glycol bath. Within the bath there is a pump that pumps the glycol mixture into a chilling Coil that is sitting in my fermenter in contact with the wort.  Tubing then sends the glycol mixture back into the glycol chiller reservoir. I have a thermowell with a temperature probe that is connected to the pump controller. So if I set my temperature at 65, when the temperature probe hits 66 it turns on the pump and runs the glycol through the chiller until it hits 65 again. Then it turns off the pump. My question was that if the glycol is set at 28, it seems to be so cold that it plunges the wort temperature two or 3° below 65. Was just wondering if I set the glycol at 50, will there be less temp overshoot?

[MNWayne]

I run my glycol at 10F lower than my target ferment temp and get no overcooling.  That's for 10 gallon batches.  Cold crashing I set it at 28F.

[trapae]

Cool, that’s what I’m figuring out.

[Thirsty_Monk]

The only reason why commercial breweries run their glycol so low is because they have multiple fermenters/Bright Tanks hooked up to it.

It you have only one fermenter in your chiller you can run your chiller warmer.

[trapae]

Makes sense, if I was fermenting at 65, and wanting to cold crash another, I would need it ar 28.

[charlie]

I ran a 5 gal AG rig starting Jan 11, 2009, and made 23 batches that calendar year. I might have gone smaller if the equipment had been available because I was worried that I would screw something up. That didn't happen, and it didn't take me long to realize that I could have made 50 gallons in the same time it took me to make 5 gallons. So on Jan 10, 2010 I mashed in on my new 10 gallons rig, and have been pretty happy with it.

My 5 gallon AG rig was a 7.5 gallon stainless HLT (about $120.00), a 7.5 gallon Polarware BK (another $95.00 or so), and a 7.5 gallon SS Blichmann mash tun that  cost me well over $450.00! What I am coming to, by degrees, is that you can get old 15.5 gallon beer kegs on Craigslist for $35-$45 dollars! When I completed fabricating my keggle MT, BK and HLT I only had about $150.00 in that system! And here we, are almost 10 years later.

Of course there were other expenses along the way. Temp controllers, another pump, a fermentation chamber, stuff like that. But the keggle system is by far the least expensive and most productive system you can get in the 10 gallon range.

Charlie (wishes they still made 1 bbl beer kegs!)

[charlie]

I ran a 5 gal AG rig starting Jan 11, 2009, and made 23 batches that calendar year. I might have gone smaller if the equipment had been available because I was worried that I would screw something up. That didn't happen, and it didn't take me long to realize that I could have made 50 gallons in the same time it took me to make 5 gallons. So on Jan 10, 2010 I mashed in on my new 10 gallons rig, and have been pretty happy with it.

My 5 gallon AG rig was a 7.5 gallon stainless HLT (about $120.00), a 7.5 gallon Polarware BK (another $95.00 or so), and a 7.5 gallon SS Blichmann mash tun that  cost me well over $450.00! What I am coming to, by degrees, is that you can get old 15.5 gallon beer kegs on Craigslist for $35-$45 dollars! When I completed fabricating my keggle MT, BK and HLT I only had about $150.00 in that system! And here we, are almost 10 years later.

Of course there were other expenses along the way. Temp controllers, another pump, a fermentation chamber, stuff like that. But the keggle system is by far the least expensive and most productive system you can get in the 10 gallon range.

Charlie (wishes they still made 1 bbl beer kegs!)

[charlie]

I ran a 5 gal AG rig starting Jan 11, 2009, and made 23 batches that calendar year. I might have gone smaller if the equipment had been available because I was worried that I would screw something up. That didn't happen, and it didn't take me long to realize that I could have made 50 gallons in the same time it took me to make 5 gallons. So on Jan 10, 2010 I mashed in on my new 10 gallons rig, and have been pretty happy with it.

My 5 gallon AG rig was a 7.5 gallon stainless HLT (about $120.00), a 7.5 gallon Polarware BK (another $95.00 or so), and a 7.5 gallon SS Blichmann mash tun that  cost me well over $450.00! What I am coming to, by degrees, is that you can get old 15.5 gallon beer kegs on Craigslist for $35-$45 dollars! When I completed fabricating my keggle MT, BK and HLT I only had about $150.00 in that system! And here we, are almost 10 years later.

Of course there were other expenses along the way. Temp controllers, another pump, a fermentation chamber, stuff like that. But the keggle system is by far the least expensive and most productive system you can get in the 10 gallon range.

Charlie (wishes they still made 1 bbl beer kegs!)

[Thirsty_Monk]

From brewery owner perspective I am always weary when someone talks about craig list and kegs. Those kegs are most likely stolen kegs. Please source your equipment from legal sources.

[denny]

From brewery owner perspective I am always weary when someone talks about craig list and kegs. Those kegs are most likely stolen kegs. Please source your equipment from legal sources.

THIS^^^^^^