My fermentation chiller

cclloyd · 03-15-2009, 02:33 AM

I built this today - it's a tile crate that I put casters on and lined with two layers of 3/4" R5 polystyrene board. Sealed it all up and I'm gonna test the temps tomorrow. Nothing fancy - I will not be doing the pumped polypropylene glycol etc - way to complicated for me. Just gonna put 6-8 one gallon jugs of frozen water in it and see what temp it gets to compared to the outside ambient temp. It's already in the mid 80's here so I'll get an idea if I need to subdivide the interior and install a fan and thermostat come summer time and mid 90's. SWMBO wanted no part of an old energy sucking fridge so I figured this was the next best thing. The whole project cost about $65 and took about 6 hours start to finish. We'll see how it works. This was the next logical step for me with the freaking heat we have nine months of the year. Pix are in my gallery.

cclloyd · 03-16-2009, 04:05 AM

So far so good. I put 4 frozen one gallon jugs in it and it got it down to 47 after about two hours. I added a fresh primary (pitched last night) and a fermed out secondary and it stabilized at 60. After 11 hours I swapped out two jugs for two frozen ones. Looks like until the ambient temp inj the garage goes up I'll be able to keep it about 60 or so by swapping two jugs twice a day. Sweet!!