Glycol chiller interval safe?

Hello,

I just set up Brewblox for my SS Brewtech half-barrell Chronical fermenter that I am using together with a glycol chiller. The settings seem to work fine because they keep the beer temperature continuously within 0,1 °C from set point (i.e. 10 °C). I am just wondering whether the settings are safe for the compressor of the gycol chiller since it runs for about 5 minutes every 35 minutes.

It this ok or should I tweak the settings to ensure that the chiller will run less frequent?

Thanks for the wonderful Brewblox tool and for your help!

Best regards,
Monty

From your post, I’m not entirely sure whether your chiller is currently managed by Brewblox, or by its own thermostat.

When Brewblox manages the glycol chiller itself, the default settings include constraints to limit both ON and OFF time:

  • Minimum OFF: 5m
  • Minimum ON: 3m

I have my glycol or water temperature constant at 2 degrees when cold crashing or a bit higher when fermenting.
He beer temperature is managed by the pump, not the glycol temperature.

For a compressor, the minimum off time is most important to give the compressor time to equalize pressure. Repeated starts without enough time in between can cause pressure to build up and overheating.

Hi,

thank you for your very fast replies.

As Elco mentioned, glycol temperature ist managed by the chiller itself - only the pump ist controlled by Brewblox. When the pump is running, glycol temperature is increasing, which causes the compressor to start shortly afterwards.

I would like to know whether the current “off time” of about 30 min between two compressor starts (that results from my current settings) is enough to prevent any harm.

Thanks again and best regards,
Monty

Yes, 30 minutes is plenty of time for the compressor to equalize. If glycol temperature is still managed by its own system, I’d expect that to have its own enforced timeout.

Thank you very much!