Frankencooler

[justsomeguy]

Well, the freezer packed it in and I had lagers to condition.

What is one to do ?

Simple, build a coolroom...

Which is what I did.

Its a portable coolroom, able to hold 12 kegs and two fermenters being cooled by a window air conditioner.
It consists of two chambers, one for the kegs and the second able to hold two fermenters. Each fermenter is individually temperature controlled allowing me to ferment both an ale and lager at the same time. Cooling of the fermentation chamber is achieved by circulating cool air from the keg chamber. I use aquarium heaters in the fermenters to keep them warm.

So, for your enjoyment, here it is !

Heres' the cooler. Door on the left to the keg chamber, door on the right fermentation chamber. Digital temp controllers on top-right corner of front. You can also see the air conditioner just behind the front panel on the righthand side.


A pic of the inside of the keg chamber.


And a pic of the fermentation chamber.


I've also got some more info here

garyd

 

[praxis178]

Well, the freezer packed it in and I had lagers to condition.

What is one to do ?

Simple, build a coolroom...

Which is what I did.

Its a portable coolroom, able to hold 12 kegs and two fermenters being cooled by a window air conditioner.
It consists of two chambers, one for the kegs and the second able to hold two fermenters. Each fermenter is individually temperature controlled allowing me to ferment both an ale and lager at the same time. Cooling of the fermentation chamber is achieved by circulating cool air from the keg chamber. I use aquarium heaters in the fermenters to keep them warm.

So, for your enjoyment, here it is !

Heres' the cooler. Door on the left to the keg chamber, door on the right fermentation chamber. Digital temp controllers on top-right corner of front. You can also see the air conditioner just behind the front panel on the righthand side.
View attachment 39412

A pic of the inside of the keg chamber.
View attachment 39413

And a pic of the fermentation chamber.
View attachment 39415

I've also got some more info here

garyd

And I thought I liked to tinker!

I love it!!!!!

 

[cozmocracker]

wow, that puts my upright freezer to shame, job well done indeed!

 

[mr_tyreman]

someones been listening to Jamil

good idea, keep us posted with its results

 

[Pennywise]

That's just pure awesomeness

 

[brettprevans]

aswome work. how much did it actually cost you to make?

 

[justsomeguy]

Frankencooler has bee up and running for around 3 weeks now. There's just a couple of cosmetic finishing to do and it will be completed.

someones been listening to Jamil

To a degree, 'yes'. I mainly used an article in Zymurgy where a guy ran through all of the steps he used to complete a built in cooler.

My main requirement was that it had to be portable as I'm in a rental property.

aswome work. how much did it actually cost you to make?

Around $600, which includes the cost of a brand new air conditioner. The air conditioner was the single most expensive item. You may be able to get one secondhand or from a hard rubbish day in your local area. The next most expensive thing was the aluminium angle. I got secondhand coolroom panels that were in a excellent condition.

For those interested in the running costs I attached a power meter that tracks on-time and actual costs based upon your electricity rates. The cost was 70cents for the first week. During this time the cooler had to get 7 kegs from 16-18degrees down to 3 degrees as well. The cooler appears to be on for around 6-8 minutes then off for 90 minutes.

I'm currently finding that the running cost is around 60 cents per week, around $32 for a year. Obviously this will go up to some degree as we get to the warmer months. My old upright freezer would run for around 5 minutes every 30-40 minutes. The new cooler is around 30% more efficient in terms of running time. The biggest difference is that the cool is handling to job of both keg cooler AND fermentation cooler. I've been able to replace a fridge and a freezer with one cooler.

I'm damn happy, to say the least, about how well it has all worked out.

I crashed two ales down last night and everything worked as expected. It actually cooled the fermenters faster than I was expecting, maybe a little too fast actually. The air conditioner was running more often obviously, but not a lot more than usual.

garyd

 

[Spoonta]

great work mate I am looking for a A/C unit now as you said in your talk get that first and build from there

 

[Jimboley]

Bloody good work!
Looks like I have a new project

Cheers

 

[Galamus]

That's fantastic, I'd be interested in building one myself. What temperature are you able to get the keg compartment down to in summer (or guestimate based on winter temps)... I'm assuming you bypass the thermostat on the air-conditioner; is it reasonably easy to do?

Cheers!

 

[amiddler]

Just when you think you have caught up with the Jones's they go and move suburbs, Or in my case build a Frankencooler.

Looks like more bling will be required in my brewery to keep up with such a nice cool room.
Great Job.

Drew

 

[shonks69]

Frankencooler has bee up and running for around 3 weeks now. There's just a couple of cosmetic finishing to do and it will be completed.


To a degree, 'yes'. I mainly used an article in Zymurgy where a guy ran through all of the steps he used to complete a built in cooler.

My main requirement was that it had to be portable as I'm in a rental property.



Around $600, which includes the cost of a brand new air conditioner. The air conditioner was the single most expensive item. You may be able to get one secondhand or from a hard rubbish day in your local area. The next most expensive thing was the aluminium angle. I got secondhand coolroom panels that were in a excellent condition.

For those interested in the running costs I attached a power meter that tracks on-time and actual costs based upon your electricity rates. The cost was 70cents for the first week. During this time the cooler had to get 7 kegs from 16-18degrees down to 3 degrees as well. The cooler appears to be on for around 6-8 minutes then off for 90 minutes.

I'm currently finding that the running cost is around 60 cents per week, around $32 for a year. Obviously this will go up to some degree as we get to the warmer months. My old upright freezer would run for around 5 minutes every 30-40 minutes. The new cooler is around 30% more efficient in terms of running time. The biggest difference is that the cool is handling to job of both keg cooler AND fermentation cooler. I've been able to replace a fridge and a freezer with one cooler.

I'm damn happy, to say the least, about how well it has all worked out.

I crashed two ales down last night and everything worked as expected. It actually cooled the fermenters faster than I was expecting, maybe a little too fast actually. The air conditioner was running more often obviously, but not a lot more than usual.

garyd

Great work mate
Any chance of getting some more details of the design. I recon I've got a home for one of these units.

Cheers :icon_cheers:

 

[dcx3]

Thats Awesome well done