Simple Conical Fermenter Cooler Idea. Will this work?

Any and all ideas, advice, plans, criticisim, etc would be greatly appreciated.

I'm renting a poorly insulated house in central texas and now have a Plastic conical fermenter. I Don't have room for another fridge to put the conical in to control temps, but I have room near the keggerator and don't mind punching some holes in the freezer to do this.

Cost is a big part of this, also simplicity. Lets go as cheap and easy as possible. I've seen some really involved systems and would rather just go back to Carboy in the rubbermaid with water/wet T-shirt for the summer months.

I have the spare coils and plenty of hoses laying around.

An aquarium pump would be my first idea but I don't know if they could handle the frozen liquid glycol.

From reading other similar minded posts I know I would have to insulate the lines.

I think I need to create a way to bleed all the air out of the system or the pump would cavitate. Yes/no?

Ambient Temp in the house when we are gone is around 85 F. If we try to lower that our Electric bill goes upwards of $300 and the wife really doesn't dig that. I would like to keep it ale temps only. I have a Corny for Lagers that fits inside the keggerator.


Thanks for any help.

Quick thought, could you wrap the coils around the exterior of the fermenter VS. submerging them in the beer?

worksnorth said:

Quick thought, could you wrap the coils around the exterior of the fermenter VS. submerging them in the beer?

Click to expand...

Thats the basic idea of this: http://morebeer.com/view_product/10778//The_Ultimate_Conical_-_14gallon

I am building a plastic conical fermenter. All parts and wooden stand will be under 100$.

Plastic doesn't conduct cold or heat very well and everything I've read here says for the plastic ones it just doesn't work very well.

Thank you for the thoughts.

i've thought of this too. In my thinking through it, i was worried that running glycol at ~0*F would cause freezing at the site of the coils before tripping the temp sensor. Ive seen the pics of guys running the glycol systems externally and having frozen condensate on the outside of the coils in an 80*F garage. I think that if you were to run glycol out of the fridge (34*F?) you would have plenty of temp differential to remove heat.

(i'm remembering something about a liquid not freezing until the entire body of liquid reaches freeze point? but i was thinking that the coils being so cold and providing a nucleation point could cause an ice buildup?)

I have a friend that is doing something similar and he is just running the lines into a giant cold room/fermenation room that is set to 34-36cish. I think he said he is just going to have a giant glycol reservoir in the cold room and recirc it through the coils in his fermenters. (He is builing a small brewery). The cold room is only for the bright tanks/lagering, etc.

anonymousbrew: Makes me wonder if I'll be ok as long as I am going for Ale temps. The exothermic yeast and the house temp would keep the fermenter well above freezing and prevent ice? Or use another's idea and go even more simple with just water running from the refrigerator not the freezer.

Varroa: Thanks. Kind of reassuring.

Both: Thank you for the input.

how about recirculating a bucket of vodka/grain alcohol sitting in the freezer?

Also, you don't want copper coil in contact with the fermenting beer. I don't have the links available but do some searching here to find info. Copper is ok in the boil, but toxic in the ferment.

That is what I am doing with my plastic conical. I coiled some 5/16" SS tubing and pump water thru it with a Harbor Freight pond pump. I placed a 2.5 g container of water in my keezer and tied it to an e-bay aquarium temp controller. My keezer doesn't get to freezing, but you will freeze if you put it in the freezer. Could you place it in the kegerator so you won't have to worry about freezing?

I fermented out some lagers at 50 degrees without any problem during the cooler months and use it for ales all the time.

bobjohnson: Thanks, That was the plan I read the same info also.

Bullbythehorns: Thanks. I'm curious why everyone that does this kind of setup goes for the aquarium temp controller vs a Ranco? Is it just a price thing?

I have the same thread going on theelctricbrewery forum as well. Everyone is saying that I can get the job done without using glycol in the freezer and just go water in the fridge.

Here's the commercial version from brewhemoth:
http://brewhemoth.com/immersion-chiller

What size/voltage pump are you planning to use?

Its a pretty simple 110v self priming sump pump I found at Lowes (75$). I was in the plumbing section and it caught my eye. I opened the box and read the data sheet and it said it was good up to 200 degrees. So I called the tech support guys and they said brewers use them all the time without problems. I hooked a dimmer switch for ceiling lights on it to control it and have had no problems pumping boiling wort on about 10 batches. I am in Kuwait and don't remember brand.

I figure with a Ranco and that same switch I can fine tune it to run a minimally as possible.

The brewhemoth is where I got the intial idea but they dont have a lot of info past just the coil. But thank you for the link.

i do the same thing to chill a coil in a keg cooling cabinet. if you keep everything insulated (exterior to the insulated spaces) you don't have to worry about sweat or freeze up. my pump runs on a space temp controller ( w a HOA switch to force run past setpoints). I run 40 percent glycol, and it's been working pretty well for about four years. I did put an airvent and a fill station in, since mine is closed loop- but having open reservoirs would probably work just as well.
- my leaving temps from the freezer are between 18 and 25 degrees, my entering temps are above freezing- depending on how much line you are circulating in and what gpm you are moving, you probably could get away with water- but i didn't want to chance it, and glycol is pretty cheap to run even 40%.

What did you use for a filling station and a vent?

Thanks for the input.

Someone on another forum gave me a brillian idea of putting a power steering cooler in the freezer. $19.00 at auto zone and its got barb fittings. I figure that plus a ranco still has me under $100.

Keep the ideas coming!!

i used an Taco hy vent and piped a riser up to a couple inches above the freezer (air rises) - i have iso valves on the pump (w a check) and i have two tees with sweat x hose bib ball valves on them separated by a valve. so to fill, i shut the ball valve in between my two hose connections, and pump the system full of my glycol/water mix. I run in the fill, through the pump and dump out the other side, until i feel pretty air free, then I check on my hydrometer (40% is like 1.034) to see where i am at and fine tune the glycol level. I shut the out flow valve, open the valve in between my hose bib connections and put pressure from a hose on the system to like 25 psi. i then run the pump and bleed air. it takes a while and a few more top offs to get the air out, then i adjust to 15 psi.