Glycol chillers are not cost effective because they are a niche product. They actually are *more* effective at chilling, since water is a much better conveyer of heat than air (which is the medium that fermentation chambers / fridges use). Both a fermentation chamber and glycol chillers have the same number of heat transfers... in a ferm chamber, the compressor cools the air and the air cools the fermenter. With gylol, the compressor cools the water and the water cools the fermenter.
nope
glycol systems are not efficient because you need to have heat transfer 4 times , in a regular refrigeration system you have heat transfer to the refrigerant and then to the air or water, with a glyco; system it is to the refrigerant, then to whatever is transferring it to the glycol, then from that to the glycol, and then to the item the glycol is cooling. that is 4 times and each time you have a transfer it loses inefficiency.
in this system will be 5
first transfer, compressor to refrigerant
second transfer, refrigerant to the air in the refrigerator holding the tank
third transfer from the air to the glcol in the tank
forth transfer from the glycol to the tank holding the wort.
fifth transfer from the tank to the wort
so you see each transfer has loss in the system
that is why it is not cost efficient, not because it is a niche system.
They are used all over the place when the benefit of the system out priorities the loss. If you had a chamber that the conical fit in and was easy to use, then that would be a more efficient system. But if your area did not have room for a chamber, or the conical was to big for a system then the glydol system would work great.
Grocery stores use them in meat counters because putting the meat on a glycol cooled plate and not having a fan blowing cool air over the meat increases the shelf life of the meat in the case x 2. therefore they have twice the time to sell the meat before turning it into hamburger. I saves them a ton of money. They can afford the loss in BTU cooling capacity the system loses.