Chilled water cooling question.

I'm running a chilled water cooling system to maintain temperature on my fermentation vessels. The total volume of water required exceeds the capacity of the chiller basin. My question is what is the best way to avoid flooding the chiller when the valve to one of the vessels is closed? Will the water run back to the chiller because of siphon effect?

Can I put the valve just before the return to the chiller to avoid having the remaining water run down into the chiller? If I do so will the chilled water behind the valve remain cold or will it warm up because the flow stopped?

Thanks in advance.

not sure which system you are referring to.

a chiller is a coil inside another coil [like a liebig] the outer coil is cooled by refrigerant, which cools the water as it circulates thru the coil

please explain your system,,,we can do this, i have a 30 gallon drum i ferment in...

i keep it in the house to keep it cool.

have you thought about using a copper coil inside the ferment bucket ?

frodo said:

i have a 30 gallon drum i ferment in...

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That is a big beer keg frodo...

OK. So first off, thanks for the replies...Secondly, this is on a much larger scale...haha. They are 8bbl fermenters. The chiller unit is a water bath with the a/c lines running through it. The chiller cools the water to somewhere around 40f. There is a circulation pump that sends the water through the lines, into the jacket on the FV, then back to the chiller. I'm setting up two zones, one for each FV that have servo valves to let water run through the jacket. I need to know if I close off a valve before the FV will the water left in the jacket and rest of the lines run back to the chiller? (bad because it will overflow). Or if I put the valve at the end of the return line will the water in the line before the valve stay cold (bad because then it will effectively be cooling all of the time).

So something like this...http://www.micromatic.com/ice-towers-up-to-10-feet-run/ice-age-tower-power-pack-mmpp4300-ice

ok, you are splitting your system into 2 zones.

typically, the zone vale goes on the supply side with a ball valve on the return to throttle flow

snisup said:

So something like this...http://www.micromatic.com/ice-towers-up-to-10-feet-run/ice-age-tower-power-pack-mmpp4300-ice

Click to expand...

hell, if your going to that expense, just chill a room lol

Haha. We already have the chiller. It's an old one from the UK. Works great though. It's originally meant for chilling beer lines over long distances. Kind of like a badass Jockey Box. OK. So in order to stop flow completely and isolate the FV when cooling isn't required I'd need a valve on each side to open and close simultaneously? Was hoping the vacuum from closing the valve would stop the siphon effect.