Created Date: March 11,2014

Created by: pressgrove

What about adding a 3-way valve to the glycol loop that bypasses the chiller and using 4-20 to modulate the valve (basically using the process heat to maintain temperature)? You could put the heater in the bypass loop so you could add heat as the fermentation slowed. This way you wouldn't be fighting the chiller. You'd have to limit how much you could bypass so you kept water flowing across the evaporator, but at some point I would think you could use some logic to decide that it was okay to shut the chiller down (like a small delta-T across the immersion coil).

Created Date: March 10,2014

Created by: trimixdiver1

So I have a glycol chiller connected via an immersion coil in a fermenter. I have a DoMore set up monitoring the glycol loop temp, fermenter temp and 4-20 out to control the loop heater. The chiller always chills and the heater does the work to change/maintain the temp.

I have a PID loop controlling the glycol loop temp and I can somewhat maintain my temperatures. Is there a way to use the Fermenter temp to help control the loop temperature? The chiller is slow to change temp so thats why I didn't use the fermenter temp to control the PID loop, it would really work the heck out of the chiller and I may get some big swings.

I can maintain temp pretty well but as fermentation slows, heat from the yeast goes down and the temp will drop. Im just trying to avoid this drop.

Thanks