Just keeps on ticking
Glycol Chiller Status Report
When I go to justify the cost of our Immersion Course, I usually start with our glycol chiller recommendation. You see, this simple chiller will save our students about $5,000 off a typical glycol chiller made for breweries. This is a line chiller, designed to chill a glycol trunk line up to 400' ft. I bought one for Colorado Boy in Ridgway in 2010. I think it was $1,700 back then. Now it’s close to $2,000 from Foxx Equipment.
In the last 14 years it has been running 24/7. We have replaced the pump, the pump motor, and the fan motor. But that’s it. When I added a brewery to Colorado Boy in Montrose, right out of the gate I bought one of these. That was in 2015. At the beginning I included a spare pump, motor and fan motor, so that if one stopped working I could quickly replace it. All I’ve done so far there is replace the pump head. That’s it. Think about that. Talk about dependability.
With one of these baby’s you can chill three fermenters. In Ridgway because of lack of space it’s just two Letina’s. In Montrose we have one Letina and two conicals. I can’t crash two at the same time, but I never need to. It maintains temperature of two while crashing one.
Another great thing about these chillers is they are quiet and aren’t energy hogs. Plus, they don’t take up a lot of room. They have a 15 gallon reservoir for glycol and that’s all you need. No 55 gallon glycol drums.
The chiller we use is a 3/4 HP unit.
This is not a complicated idea. It goes with my philosophy of simplicity. For example I do not have a brewers platform with a hard piped mono-bloc brew house. I use a pump with an on and off switch on a simple cart. If I am pumping hot wort, I use good quality brewers hose. If I am cleaning a tank or transferring beer, then a simple clear suction hose. It makes cleaning up a snap and I wheel the thing out of the way when I’m not using it. The pump also serves for cleaning kegs.
A simple glycol chiller that’s easy to plumb. A good quality sanitary pump on a cart. A dependable direct fired kettle. Mash/Lauter Tun that could easily be a dairy tank. Two or three fermenters and non-jacketed serving tanks in a cold room.
Happy. Brewing.
PS. I’m finally finishing the Business Operations book in paperback format. Should be done in a month.
Hello Tom,
Is it essential to have the chiller above the fermenters? I have the chiller you featured in your post and just read in your Operations Manual that it needs to be elevated. I’m in the process of setting this system up now and would really not like to have to raise the chiller above my 3bbl fermenters.
Thx,
Joe V