Freezer Ice Bank for Fermenter Temp Control

[toby_pdb]

Hi all, this is my first post on Aussie Home Brewer.

I have been looking at ways to control fermentation temperature, especially in the hot weather we've been having, and I really like the look of the glycol chillers that are floating around on the market. The only problem is the price of the suckers.

From what I can gather, these chillers are basically just a freezer that freezes a block (bank) of ice with a copper coil running through it. You then just pump a liquid (i.e. glycol) through the ice entombed coil, out into a second coil suspended in the medium you want to cool (i.e. your fermenting wort) and then back into the iced coil again. Temperature control comes from firing up a pump to move the cold liquid when the fermenter gets too hot.

My question is, has anyone ever tried freezing a large block of ice in a standard freezer for this purpose? It would be a bit of stuffing around, but the pump setup and temperature control are definitely within the realms of possibility and much cheaper than a standalone glycol chiller. Another advantage I see is that you could use a fridge/freezer combo for this purpose and still have the whole fridge section open for whatever uses you desire.

 

[Garagebrew]

I haven’t really looked into this as I recently moved to keeping my fermenter in a fridge with an added temp controller to suit fermenting temps but it doesn’t sound like a bad idea, if you had enough glycol you may even be able to put a a tank in the freezer with just the glycol solution and not have to worry about the ice block?
Again I haven’t looked into the purpose built units so I might be missing something here.

 

[Dazza88]

Just put a temp controller on a second hand fridge. Easier effective and fairly cheap. Most do it this way. I have stc1000 but i see newer things like inkbirds.