Immersion coil for fermenter chilling

Hey Y'all,
I've been toying with the idea of a new way to control the temp of my fermenter in the summer .

I use a Blichmann fermenator (14.5 g) and the plan is to buy another one of the
oval hatch-doors for the lid, and insert a stainless tubing coil into the wort.

I plan on buying a PID, and a small fountain pump, and use either
a) switched pump, and a Peltier device chilled water reservoir , or
b) constant pump, and switched Peltier device. (favored)

I wonder about BTUs though

thoughts?

With a thermowell and a temp probe/controller running the switched pump, sounds cool.

I think a switched pump with a cooled resovoir will probably be a little more efficient, but keeping a fermenter cool with a peltier will be pretty tough. You'll probably have to get it to temperature with another method, and just use the peltier to maintain. Add lots of insulation around the fermenter as well.

I really think the key to tight control is going to be a continuous running pump, and a closely controlled (coolant) temp with a PID. Besides, I cant see a PID trying to control a pump.

I could be wrong though, I have no experience with the johnson controls devices, and something like that might be suitable for controlling a pump.

I'm wondering if something like this would do the job for the reservoir ....maybe a PID would do a good job controlling the water temp inside .
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0001MQ7DG/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20

Hey Y'all,
I wanted to update you on this ...
I bought another trap-door for the top of my fermenator, and wound 18 feet of 3/8" copper tubing into a double helix coil (2" inner coil, and 3.5" outer diameter coil).

I bored a couple 3/8" holes in the hatch, and silver-soldered the coil pigtails through the hatch (copper to stainless).

I bought one of the STC-1000 temp controllers and wired that up to an outlet box so I have a heater outlet and chiller outlet.

At this point , I'm chilling the fermenter with ice-water from cooler, via a controller-switched fountain pump. This works well but it's not the final cut.

Next batch:
I plan on running the pump full time, and switching 250 watts of on-the-fly-cooling Peltier devices. Basically, I'll pump out of a 1-2 gallon reservoir constantly, and through a thermoelectric-cooled water block . I hope to see 40f degrees coming out of the water block...this goes straight into the immersion coil inside the fermenter. Then out of the immersion coil and back to the water reservoir.

I'll post some pics when I finish up (and it works)

Looking forward to the pics and working results!

Hate to burst your bubble but you don't want copper in your beer once fermentation has started

OMJ said:

Hate to burst your bubble but you don't want copper in your beer once fermentation has started

Click to expand...

OMG is right, you have to use stainless steel. I am doing this with a brewhemoth. I am using a STC-1000 to control a pump in a cooler that I load with frozen water bottles. It keeps the temp within .3 degrees Celsius.

Crap...! The copper completely slipped by my brain. They are right, SS would be much preferred with this application! Otherwise you could risk toxins that wont be cleaned up by the yeast. Copper pre fermentation it beneficial though... Still, interested in the final outcome of your project.

Contact Zach at Stainless steel brewing, he made my immersion coil for my fermenter, I went with a reservoir chilled with an aquarium chiller and a pump. I can get the reservoir down to 38 and that can cool the fermenter to 64-62ºF.

Oh jeez, back to the drawing board

as with anything else in the net, there's a lot of differing info about copper in the fermenter.
I was actually planning on redoing the coil, so I might as well go with SST at this point

Hey Y'all,
Been MIA for a while with work, life, etc .

The thermoelectric device experiment failed ...nowhere near the amount of BTUs to get the job done .

In the meantime, Zach made me a nice 6" dia. stainless immersion coil that I silver soldered into the 2nd hatch that I had .
Then I found a Kenmore 50 pint dehumidifier for $20. After a good cleaning, I was able to modify it and was able to insert the evaporator into the water reservoir to directly chill the glycol....the collection reservoir holds about 9 quarts of glycol.

Once I had that done, I built a controller box with two STC-1000s. One of the controllers monitors the glycol temp and cycles the dehumidifier on/off to chill the glycol. The second STC-1000 monitors the fermenter temp, and cycles a fountain pump on/off to pump the glycol through the stainless coil inside the fermenter.
it's been working for 24 hours like a charm ...I'd call it a success

good work! that looks like a rad contraption.

thx bsquared.
so far, It appears to be able to hold the temp variance to less than 1 degree :rockin:

I case anyone is fixin to build one, here's a Youtube Video that explains how it works :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SShHUYHN5CI

How cold are you able to chill with this setup?

Ive crash chilled a batch of pale ale all the way down to 3C . Im pretty confident I could ferment a lager in it.