Fermenter Fridge Project.

[sqyre]

After going through the BS of trying to keep my Belgian Dubble we brewed last weekend under 20,
And with the days already hitting 32, i decided i better start knocking up something to keep my fermentation temps under control.
I had a few sheets of cold room panel i had been saving for a while so i grabed some aluminium angle and set to it..

The whole thing is made out of 75mm thick coldroom panel and the internal dimensions are 2100mm long X 400mm wide by 650mm high.
it will comfortably hold 6x 30litre fermenters with a movable partion to seperate lagers from ales.. the moveable partion allows me to have any combination of number of fermenters for lagers or ales..
The plan is to use cold air pumped in to each end controlled seperatly by 2 fridgemates.
I have it lightly rivetted together and hopefully will have it complete by the end of the week.

The smell of Renae's Brewing wafting out of the shed signalled Beer o'clock.. :icon_cheers: so its down tools untill tommorrow..
Here's some pics of where i am up to..
It looks a little grubby (because it is) but it should clean up ok once i'm done...


Sqyre..

 

[the_fuzz]

very nice, good work

 

[clarkey7]

Looks great Sqyre,

Can't wait to see it up and running.

PB

 

[NickB]

Sqyre, you are a fcuking marvel my friend!

Get that thing up and running ASAP - got a swap in 8 weeks remember??!?!?!?!!? No shortage of beers needed for that occasion!



Cheers

 

[Crunched]

How are you pumping the cold air in? Where is it coming from?

 

[sqyre]

How are you pumping the cold air in? Where is it coming from?

I have an old chest freezer that we use for our frozen stuff..
I am going to try pumping cold air from the bottom of that to chill the Fermentation box..
To avoid the frozen stuff defrosting i will always keep the freezer full with frozen coke bottles and with partioned sections of the box i can make the area to be chilled as minimal as possible..

Its only a trial to see if the old freezer can do it and maintain the frozen meat/veges..
If not i may look at glycol or failing that i have the head brewers blessing to butcher the old freezer if possible to use as the cooling element and go out and buy her a cheap new one ..

Sqyre...

 

[alexbrand]

I have an old chest freezer that we use for our frozen stuff..
I am going to try pumping cold air from the bottom of that to chill the Fermentation box..

Sqyre,

I like your idea of building a cool room on your own. Had the same idea a year ago, but I could not find "enough cold air at an acceptable price"... So just some ideas:

how will you pump the air? With a fan? I think, you will defrost your freezer within minutes and warm up the whole stuff.

Another idea: Do you have a well? Get an old cooler from the scrap metal yard. May be there you'll find an old chiller unit, too... a cool room for 180 L needs a proper unit, I guess. Don't you have a fridge mechanic in your neighbourhood?

Cheers,

Alex

 

[sqyre]

Another Backup i have is a very small window mounted air con which we havent used since we got our big aircon year before last.
Not sure how i will mount the ******* but i will work something out..
Maybe some insulated ducting and some ventilation diverters out of my old Toyota corolla wreck out the back..

Sqyre...

 

[yardy]

Another Backup i have is a very small window mounted air con

Sqyre...

I was thinking this would be a better option, i have a few of the same panels and an old box air con and have thought about building something similar, haven't got my sights set as high as you though Sqyre, was thinking 2 fermenters.

Cheers
Yard

 

[sqyre]

While i was cleaning out the Shed the other week..(took nearly a week too)
I found an old chilling radiator type thingy.. doo-hicky.. that i pulled out of an old fridge before i chucked it ages ago..

Being made for that very purpose of chilling a fridge i wondered how it would go mounting it in the Fermenter fridge and pumping some glycol through it.

Then i noticed that the number of cooling blades increase from one side to the other as if it was suposed to have air pushed through it...
So i ran with that idea..

firstly i made a rough box out some old timber scraps and added a curved sheet of tin to aid directing the air flow out...


Then i mounted the Radiator thingy in it...


And found a couple of old PC cooling fans that i had kept...(actually i pinched one from my pc up at the bar..)
and monted them off to one side.. i may add more depending how the flow goes...


And boxed up the whole thing to concentete the air flow through the radiator..


I hooked an old pump up to it and circulated some -4 glycol and it the air coming out was quite cold.
I put my elcheapo temp gauge in the path of the cold air and it got down to 17 from 26 so it should be heaps better with an adequate pump and tested properly in the Fermentation box..As the pump was pretty piss weak and only pushed through the tinyest trickle of glycol.

Of course it was made to perfectly fit down one end of the Fermentation box...


Anyhoo, Beer o'clock for today. hopefully i can get it all together by next weekend and give it a good test..
I dont expect it to drop the temps of the fermenters just maintain them. put a lager in at 12 and hopefully the box can keep it there..

Sqyre..

 

[raven19]

Brilliant that Sqyre.

I wish I had a shed to lose things in that could then be found later on again... keen to hear how it goes.

Cheers.

 

[InCider]

Sqyre, you're good with your hands. Very good. *ahem* See you at the Swap :icon_cheers:

 

[sqyre]

Now the Swap is over and done with and the Mega-esky served its purpose as a communal Keg esky i have resumed Fermenter fridge Testing.
I have had trouble finding a small pump to circulate the Glycol and had decided on trying an electric fuel pump but was a bit relucant to fork out $100 for a new one just for a test..
So i thought i would pull out the tiny window washer pump out of my Suzuki and give that a go.. and it worked!!!

Ok so i rigged it all up to be powered by an old PC power supply.
Hooked up the pump to my Glycol ice bank.
Chucked the timber boxed radiator thingy in the Mega esky and fired it up....

With an ambient Room Temp of about 31, the -1 Glycol managed to drop the temp in the Mega-esky down to 20 in about 3 minutes..
then down to 14 in another 7 minutes.
about 30 minutes after that it was down to 8

So i'm pretty happy with the results with using only -1 glycol and chilling the entire 300 Litre esky (i think thats right.. inside dim. = 620x400x1200mm)
The next stage wil be to get the Temp controller set up and mounted properly and test a fermenter in it.

I also need to make up the partition so that if only one fermenter is in there its only having to cool the area of one fermenter which will make it a lot more efficient.

Using -20 glycol in the future will definatly make it a success. :icon_cheers:

Anyhoo heres some pics.


The Mega-esky in the Shed.


The PC power supply and dodged up window wiper squirter.


The mounted Cooling element do-hicky.. (gunna have to work out what this thing is called. <_< ) and milk crate with the temp probe.


9 inside and 31 outside (i opened the lid before the pic so it came up to 9)

Sqyre..

 

[NickB]

You are a marvel Sqyre!

Bloody top work!

Cheers

 

[yardy]

+1

you're an innovative bugger, nice work

cheers
yard

 

[sqyre]

A bit of an update....

The windscreen washer squirter pump finally died 2 days ago so the hunt was on again for a new pump...
so i decided to try an electric Fuel pump..
Worked awesome for about 2 hours then seized... i dont think they like glycol, or was it the sub zero temps?..

Anyhoo, i thought stuff it... the windscreen washer pump worked pretty good so i went to supercheap and picked 1 up for $15..
It lasted a whole 2 minutes untill it fried itself... <_<
the pump part is plastic but the motor is a sealed steel casing, and apparently not designed to run constantly..
The original one i used had a lot more steel in the pump part which i think was transfering the cold from the glycol which helped keep it cool...

After this new one seized i pulled it a part and found the plastic coating on the windings melted and gummed it up..
so i dug it all out, drilled a bunch of holes in the casing to try and let the heat out..
and surprise its still going.( i also have the fan from the power supply blowing on it..)

Hopefully it will do untill i find something better...

Sqyre... :icon_cheers:

 

[PhilA]

:icon_chickcheers: That gives me some ideas for my self, great work !
Cheers Phil

 

[poppa joe]

Use a Pond Pump.....
Cheers
Pj