How much cooling 'power' does a cornelius beer cooler have?

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How much cooling 'power' does a cornelius beer cooler have?

Post by spook100 » Wed Jan 24, 2018 9:56 pm

I am looking at setting up a kreezer/kegerator type setup with 4 taps. The problem I have is that I want to be able to dispense at different temperatures for lagers and ales. My initial thinking was that I would set up a single kreezer at ale dispensing temperature and then get myself a 2-product beer cooler like a cornelius maxi 210 to chill the lagers down to the correct temperature.
My understanding is that these coooler will chill the coolant down to about 1C, so it then occurred to me that I could build a bespoke, insulated cooling chamber - just big enough to hold 4 corny kegs - with some sort of a radiator through which I could circulate the coolant from the cooler to chill it to ale serving temperature (11C). I could then dispense the ales directly from the kegs and run the lagers through the cooler to get them down to lager serving temperature (5C).
So, my question is:would one of these coolers have the cooling capacity to maintain a 4-keg chamber at 11C?
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Re: How much cooling 'power' does a cornelius beer cooler have?

Post by orlando » Thu Jan 25, 2018 9:13 am

spook100 wrote:
Wed Jan 24, 2018 9:56 pm

So, my question is:would one of these coolers have the cooling capacity to maintain a 4-keg chamber at 11C?
I use mine to control fermentation temperatures in a conical with an internal coil. Even during the Summer it can get the beer down to <5c a little lower in the Winter and without using Glycol. With the right level of insulation you may well be able to manage it, others may have experience of using one to cool a chamber.
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Re: How much cooling 'power' does a cornelius beer cooler have?

Post by Fil » Thu Jan 25, 2018 11:46 am

when used in bars etc shelf chillers are run 24/7, or from start of the morning shift to end of night.. and build up a cold store in the form of an ice bank to cater for the 'rush hours' where pints are poured in quick succession.

However when used at home for a few pints of an evening, the chillers are powerful enough to drop the waterbath temp to 0c in 20-40 minutes, if run one night the following day it will still hold some residual chill and take less time to chill down again ..

And the usual method of regulating the rate of heat exchange from the chiller to the beer in the product coils is a combo of flow/speed and length of product coil. my 4 coil chiller has 2x short coils and 2x longer ones.. Once you get used to it there is something quite satisfying with a slow pour for that extra chill as you can sit the glass under the tap flip it open and relax as it fills ala pretentious bar stout pouring.. (and sometimes its necessary to simply contain the extra pressure in a highly conditioned brew.)

ebay can usually provide Pods, small units containing a waterbath and product coil which are fed via the chillers recirculation pump or 'python' these are generally less effective than the in built product coils and are often employed with draught ales and hand pumps circa £20 last time i looked but that was a while back..

However if you have room for a 4 keg encolsure cant you fit a 2nd use/freecycle fridge in?? then a cheaper smaller shelf chiller could be sourced and as long as you gave it half an hour or left it on a segment timer or something more sophisticated, it could add that extra chill for your lagers etc ??
ist update for months n months..
Fermnting: not a lot..
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Maturing: Challenger smash, and a kit lager
Drinking: dry one minikeg left in the store
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Re: How much cooling 'power' does a cornelius beer cooler have?

Post by spook100 » Thu Jan 25, 2018 5:57 pm

Fil wrote:
Thu Jan 25, 2018 11:46 am
However if you have room for a 4 keg encolsure cant you fit a 2nd use/freecycle fridge in?? then a cheaper smaller shelf chiller could be sourced and as long as you gave it half an hour or left it on a segment timer or something more sophisticated, it could add that extra chill for your lagers etc ??
That was my original plan but I'm very limited on space. Most (all?) fridges/freezers are 600mm deep and I want to squeeze the kegs into the 400mm space under my bar counter. Don't really fancy rebuilding the bar to accommodate it.
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Re: How much cooling 'power' does a cornelius beer cooler have?

Post by Kev888 » Thu Jan 25, 2018 7:29 pm

My maxi 110 has an effective cooling power for its own bath of about 190 watts. However, its bath is quite small; once coolant starts running out through pipes and cooling volumes with larger wall areas it can drop very quickly, because of all the extra heat gain. And I wouldn't want it running full time to keep up, because these things are a bit noisy, the bigger ones can be really very noisy. So you may not want to work on that much cooling.

You can't radiate cold, rather you suck in heat, but I'm being pedantic; I know what you mean. My guess is that it would likely work if the radiator was big/good enough (it will need to be bigger than a normal fridge cooling plate for similar performance, because it won't get as cold).

However it could be pretty inefficient unless you used plenty of insulation, which may be hard (or expensive) with limited space. So if the intention is just for dispensing (not for lagering the keg) my thought would be to go with keeping all the kegs at cellar temperatures in one keggerator and just using the cooler as it was intended for the lager (or even a passive water bath filled with ice from a freezer, if you only have intermittent sessions). You could replace the cooler's thermostat with an electronic variable one, if worried about it being too cold.
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Re: How much cooling 'power' does a cornelius beer cooler have?

Post by PeeBee » Thu Jan 25, 2018 7:49 pm

Don't know if you've seen my post dealing with a similar situation? viewtopic.php?f=38&t=80114

Hasn't run in anger yet (fully loaded) but I'm not expecting difficulties. I'm only planning on running the cooler for 15 minutes, 6 times a day, depending on ambient temperature. The advantage I have (and maybe you?) is I don't like frigid beer. About 10C minimum and 14C more likely (cellar temp.). Very flexible arrangement, I'm expecting to accommodate up to 6 20L kegs at a least three different temperatures.

And the product coils are free if I'm suddenly overwhelmed with a desire to have anything cooler.
Cask-conditioned style ale out of a keg/Cornie (the "treatise"): https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BwzEv5 ... rDKRMjcO1g
Water report demystified (the "Defuddler"; removes the nonsense!): https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/ ... sp=sharing

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Re: How much cooling 'power' does a cornelius beer cooler have?

Post by spook100 » Fri Jan 26, 2018 12:03 pm

Kev888 wrote:
Thu Jan 25, 2018 7:29 pm
You can't radiate cold
I *knew* someone would say this :wink: . Thanks for the good advise though... kind of what I was expecting. Back to the drawing board, I guess.
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Re: How much cooling 'power' does a cornelius beer cooler have?

Post by spook100 » Fri Jan 26, 2018 12:06 pm

PeeBee wrote:
Thu Jan 25, 2018 7:49 pm
Don't know if you've seen my post dealing with a similar situation? viewtopic.php?f=38&t=80114

Hasn't run in anger yet (fully loaded) but I'm not expecting difficulties. I'm only planning on running the cooler for 15 minutes, 6 times a day, depending on ambient temperature. The advantage I have (and maybe you?) is I don't like frigid beer. About 10C minimum and 14C more likely (cellar temp.). Very flexible arrangement, I'm expecting to accommodate up to 6 20L kegs at a least three different temperatures.

And the product coils are free if I'm suddenly overwhelmed with a desire to have anything cooler.
Looks like it has potential. Where did you get the neoprene?
A fine beer may be judged with only one sip, but it's better to be thoroughly sure.

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Re: How much cooling 'power' does a cornelius beer cooler have?

Post by PeeBee » Fri Jan 26, 2018 2:24 pm

spook100 wrote:
Fri Jan 26, 2018 12:06 pm
... Looks like it has potential. Where did you get the neoprene?
EBay from this one: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Black-PLAIN- ... 41bc0d8ff1

I'm thinking I might need some sort of protect sleeve as the neoprene can get scuffed easily.

It's not that cheap (but waterproof and glue-on-able) so you should plan things out reasonably carefully. I've attached my figuring outs (corny kegs do differ in size so watch that). I glued it with cans of impact adhesive (like "Evostick", but don't use the tubes because that will cost a fortune). Of course you need to be careful working with impact adhesive because it is instant fix and you don't get a second chance to position things - and the fumes!
Attachments
Keg Lagging 02.jpg
Keg Lagging 01.jpg
Cask-conditioned style ale out of a keg/Cornie (the "treatise"): https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BwzEv5 ... rDKRMjcO1g
Water report demystified (the "Defuddler"; removes the nonsense!): https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/ ... sp=sharing

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Re: How much cooling 'power' does a cornelius beer cooler have?

Post by PeeBee » Fri Jan 26, 2018 8:10 pm

The PVC cooling coils are 9mm id x 12mm od (I think?). Terminated with 3/8" stem to 3/8" push-fit elbows or 3/8" stem to 3/8" barb straight fittings. A 3/8" barbed elbow joins two tube lengths together and fits into the "modified" spacer so one coil doubles back to form a twin coil. The fittings need hose clips to tighten them. Lengths of the PVC tube clad in insulation with the same fitting connect the coils to the cooler. A short length allows the single coil to be "jumpered" to the double coil forming a triple coil for extra cooling.
Cask-conditioned style ale out of a keg/Cornie (the "treatise"): https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BwzEv5 ... rDKRMjcO1g
Water report demystified (the "Defuddler"; removes the nonsense!): https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/ ... sp=sharing

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Re: How much cooling 'power' does a cornelius beer cooler have?

Post by spook100 » Fri Jan 26, 2018 8:46 pm

Wow - great info. Thanks! I will have to study it in more detail on my computer, it's a bit difficult to see on the phone.
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Re: How much cooling 'power' does a cornelius beer cooler have?

Post by simon12 » Mon Jan 29, 2018 11:41 am

Couldn't you use 2 maxi chillers 1 set to ale temp 1 to lager? I think some have differnet lengh cooling lines so already can dispense at 2 temps or if you set the lager to go through it slower in will dispense it slower.

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Re: How much cooling 'power' does a cornelius beer cooler have?

Post by Fishman » Sat May 05, 2018 3:26 pm

Hello guys,
I have a Maxi 110 but it is missing the pump/agitator from the top of the cooling tank. I was told by the brewer that gave it to me that it still chills down but I need to use an external pump for the product line.
I excitedly got it home, plugged it in, all sounded good. The compressor fired up, the high pressure line to the radiator got hot but no chilling happened in the tank. Left it for 4 hours. Still nothing.
I used to have one of these before which worked a treat if a little noisy with the agitator going. This one only has the bath and the compressor. No other ancillary Controls.
Can anyone tell me if this is right or not. I have got the manuals from the net and the exploded views show a fan behind the radiator. Two thermostats and the either a recirculating pump or an agitator in the top of the tank.
Photos if required
Thank you


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Re: How much cooling 'power' does a cornelius beer cooler have?

Post by Fishman » Sat May 05, 2018 7:50 pm

[IMG]//uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201805 ... 809202.jpg[/IMG]

I think I have found my problem. Looks like the compressor itself circulates the refrigerant around the primary coil in the ice bank. Mine is not circulating cold when the compressor is on. Loss of refrigerant gas or bad compressor. Neither easy fixes.


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