Is This A Feasable Way For Temp Control

[mattric]

Many homebrewers use a fridge however I am struggling to find something that will fit my plastic fermenter and is cheap. I have got some old PC watercooling gear at home that has just crossed my mind as may do the trick.

My thought, if feasable, is to get a large esky, drill some holes in the sides, have some bent copper running along the back of the esky which is linked to tubes that is connected to a pump and radiator with two fans.

I'm wanting to get steady temps of 20 degrees which will be maintained by a temp mate.

Is this feasible? If I had a Reservior in a freezer/fridge with anti freeze would the system keep much cooler temps?

 

[Wolfy]

Nope, won't really help, the best you could do - without a refrigerant setup - would be to cool it to ambient which is what it would sit at anyway.
If you had anti-freeze in the fridge/freezer it would help, but you'd have trouble transferring the heat from the cooling tubes to the fermentor.

 

[twizt1d]

best way to make something like that work would be to have the esky full of water and have the chiller keep the water in the esky at a constant temp
just use a radiator at each end of the loop and have a small recirc pump to keep the water in the esky moving over the radiator

should work fine, the bigger the volume of water the more stable the temp


(my pc is watercooled and i played with peltier chillers and stuff so i know where your coming from, kudos)

 

[Clutch]

I'm now going to head out and overclock my urn.

 

[chadjaja]

I get all summer long low ferment temps simply using these coolers with the LARGE ice bricks from bunnings filled with salt water. Can ferment as low as 14-16 degrees with two of them in swapped daily. Just chuck a towel over the top and its pretty stable. Bunnings fermenters are even better than the one pictured as they are more squat and barely come up to the rim of the cooler. Less fermenter sticking out and less air space underneath.

 

[kelbygreen]

i doubt it would work at all. As said at best it will keep it at ambient temps but at a guess the system would be to small, As said you can use a cooler with ice bricks. you could use 2lt milk bottles and stuff to if you wanna do it on the cheap.

 

[bignath]

Water bath for the win. Easiest, cheapest, and with some careful thought regarding yeast you can knock out some kick ass beer. Get a $10 tub from bunnies, on the way home, buy some 1.5 lt bottled waters and freeze them. Then rotate if you have to. Ive just got to the end of fermenting a double batch out in the shed in two tubs, in some really awful sticky humid weather. Didnt need any ice bricks either. Held 18 degrees beautifully for the whole ferment.

EDIT: or if you have a bath in your house and a shower, you can save the massive $10 and use that.

 

[JDW81]

Water bath for the win. Easiest, cheapest, and with some careful thought regarding yeast you can knock out some kick ass beer. Get a $10 tub from bunnies, on the way home, buy some 1.5 lt bottled waters and freeze them. Then rotate if you have to. Ive just got to the end of fermenting a double batch out in the shed in two tubs, in some really awful sticky humid weather. Didnt need any ice bricks either. Held 18 degrees beautifully for the whole ferment.

EDIT: or if you have a bath in your house and a shower, you can save the massive $10 and use that.

I do the same. 5cm of water in a plastic tub then wrap the fermenter in a towel. Cheap, easy and it works a treat. If the weather is forecast to be hot then I'll put of couple of frozen techni ice sheets under the towel and even in 40+ I've maintained 18 degrees no worries.

 

[argon]

If i didn't have a fermenting fridge and had the stuff that you had at hand i'd setup someting like this;

Forum user Petedadink came up with a way to beat the California Summer heat in his garage by using a small pond pump and a carboy-sized cooler.

Controlling fermentation temps is key to a clean beer. If you have a fridge keeping your kegs at serving temperature and there is room for one more you can put that cooling power to work for you.
Peter was using frozen water bottles in an ice bath to keep his carboy temperatures lower, but freezing water bottles can be a pain especially if you find yourself fighting for freezer space.
He bent 1/4" aluminum tubing to fit the water surrounding his carboy and ran hose line to-and-from it to his serving fridge. In the fridge among his beer kegs, one corny simply holds several gallons of water
and a small 250 GPH pond pump.

That pump recirculates the 40F water from its keg through the aluminum coils to chill the water far more evenly, and ultimately more effectively, than frozen bottles did.

One could easily add a digital thermostat with a thermowell in the cooler's water to this system and turn the pump on and off only as needed to maintain fermentation temperatures.

To go completely nuts with cooling power, pump anti-freeze (glycol) from a freezer through the coils instead of refrigerated water.

http://www.thebrewingnetwork.com/Beer-Gadg...ond-Pump-Cooler

 

[stux]

Saw that,

I reckon you could use that technique to have one fridge/freezer supply varying levels of cooling to many different ferments

 

[wombil]

G'Day mattric,
This is what I was going to do but aquired a fridge and stc 1000 so went that way.This should work ok,cost nothing hardly and go forever,no moving parts.
The system works on evaporation,same as a water bag and should keep the fv cool on hot days.Fluctuation might be the only drawback.
My idea was to use it in summer as winter takes care of itself and I am in queensland between Brisbane and Gold coast.
I call it my Coolgardie Fermenter.
Just put the idea out there anyway.I reckon it should work ok.

 

[eamonnfoley]

Try gumtree or your local newspaper for sale columns. I've got 2 very decent quality 2nd hand fridges (1 serving, 1 fermentation), for about $75 each. Much easier than alternative solutions.

 

[bignath]

I quite like that idea wombil!

Simple, nothing to break, nothing to add extra bucks to a power bill, and should be very effective.

The double batches ive just fermented in two water baths have got me thinking about doing this all the time so i can turn off my fridge to save some coin for more brewery shit i dont need important and crucial equipment.

 

[Fish13]

i can get steady temps by using a bomber jacket and a belt and changing out techni ice gel packs every 12 hours. you could get more if you sued and insulated jacket too.

 

[komodo]

2nd hand bar fridge on ebay $30
STC1000 $30 delivered
Heat mat $50
Misc parts from jaycar/bunnings $20

Total = $130
Temp controlled fermentation = priceless.

Large esky of any ok quality will cost you nearly half that any way before you even start controlling the temp and it'll never be as good.

Being that we're in warmer months you could get away with just cooling control and look to a heat mat in cooler months once the budget has recovered. So for $80 you get perfectly temp controlled beers over summer.