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by chris2012 » Sun Aug 13, 2017 3:34 pm
HTH1975, a lot of people do seem to use maxi chillers, but I'm not sure if they can take glycol or not, as they are designed for having a water bath afaik, but it would be cool if you could put glycol in them, I'm not sure about how the SG of glycol compares to water, if it would effect the pump used in them.
I picked up my maxi for around £30 a while ago. Not sure how much they are 2nd hand these days.
Edit: Apparently 1.008 for propylene, so it is denser than water by some degree, but maybe not by too much? I guess the pump on a maxi could always be swapped out if necessary?
Having said that I was able to chill beer to around 4C using just a water bath in the maxi, using an SS coil in the beer, attached to the maxi. Admittedly I didn't use any insulation on the piping to the fermenter with the coil, which would definitely help. And the fermenter wasn't the best insulated, using just an old camping matt.
I think the water temp when I measured it was -0.4C in the bath iirc.