How it works...a brief explanation
Most remote beer systems simply deliver the beer from refrigerated walk-in coolers, to the taps. They use glycol Power Paks to maintain the temperature of the beer in the delivery lines from the walk-in to the tap. The problem with such systems is that they rely heavily on the temperature of the walk-in cooler to chill the beer. If the walk-in temperature increases, the beer temperature increases. Once the stored temperature increases beyond a certain point, the beer will begin to foam, causing waste, pour-off, and unhappy customers.
In the Chill-Pak system, the glycol chills
the Chill-Pak Energy Cell...a molded block of aluminum, which
has a series of stainless steel glycol and beer lines embedded
in it. This is called a cold plate. The aluminum cold plate is
chilled by the glycol, and stores the temperature of the glycol.
As the beer flows through the beer lines embedded in the aluminum
cold plate, the cold plate draws heat from the beer, flash chilling
it to the temperature of the glycol. This is the action of a
heat exchange.
The excess heat is carried off by the glycol, which returns to
the power pak warmer than when it left. The refrigeration system
of the power pak draws the heat from the glycol, and sends it
back out again at the predetermined temperature.
The system is so efficient that in most applications, there is
only a 3 to 6 degree differential in the temperature of the glycol
upon it's return to the power pak compared to the temperature
when it left the power pak.
This efficiency is due to the cold plate itself. It stores the
energy of the glycol in a large, heavy aluminum plate. Let's
say you want to serve beer at about 32 degrees. You adjust the
glycol temperature accordingly. If the beer is stored at 40 degrees,
the cold plate will draw off the 8 degrees of temperature. But
since the cold plate has so much stored energy, the beer raises
the temperature of the cold plate very little. And the glycol
recirculating through the cold plate immediately draws off the
excess temperature.
