Glycol System Not Cooling?

Glycol temperature rising. Beer lines beginning to warm. Pour quality degrading — more head, inconsistent flow. Staff start complaining before customers do.

Most venues notice the problem here but assume it'll settle.

Active foaming on multiple taps. Beer unusable or poured at significant waste. Bar manager making calls. Wrong contractor sent first.

Every pint poured at 30–50% foam is a pint of revenue lost. Not recoverable.

Draught beer effectively off during service. Customers ordering alternatives or leaving. Reputation damage for venues with regular clientele.

Friday or Saturday night: revenue impact measurable in thousands.

Full service disruption. Keg product potentially compromised at temperature. Multiple contractor callouts if wrong diagnosis on first attendance.

The longer the fault runs unresolved, the higher the total cost — repair, waste and lost revenue combined.

The glycol chiller rejects heat through its condenser — exactly like a refrigeration system. A dirty condenser in Queensland summer ambient can push head pressure above design limits, causing the chiller to lose capacity or trip on high pressure protection.

Most common cause of gradual temperature rise during afternoon peak. Often missed because it develops slowly over weeks.

Glycol/water ratio must be maintained within a specific range. Too low — the mix approaches freezing point at setpoint, risking ice formation and pump blockage. Too high — viscosity increases, reducing flow rate and heat transfer efficiency.

Concentration drifts when systems are topped up with water without testing. Simple to check; rarely done.

Glycol pump seals degrade over time, particularly if concentration is off or the system has been running dry. Cavitation — air in the circuit — causes noisy pump operation, reduced flow and inconsistent cooling across fonts furthest from the chiller.

Presents as temperature inconsistency across the bar — near fonts fine, far fonts warm.

Multi-run glycol systems need to be properly balanced so each branch receives the correct flow rate. An unbalanced system has some fonts overcooled and others consistently warm — a commissioning fault that often isn't caught until the system runs under full load.

Diagnosed by temperature mapping across all fonts under load — not by checking one tap.

The glycol chiller uses a refrigerant circuit to cool the glycol bath. A slow refrigerant leak reduces chiller capacity gradually — glycol temperature creeps up over weeks. By the time the symptom is obvious, the system has been degraded for some time.

Requires refrigeration diagnosis, not just glycol system checks. ACRO holds both licences.

A glycol system installed for a smaller bar, then extended to additional fonts without capacity review, may not have the chiller capacity or pump output to maintain temperature across all circuits simultaneously under peak demand.

Common in venues that have expanded or added taps over time without reassessing the glycol system.