BEST fermenter cooler on hot days

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cheschire

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I just found my old aquarium equipment. In there I have a water pump with a built in heater / cooler. I put my fermentor in a garbage can filled with water to the same volume as the beer (so it wouldnt tip / float) then circulated the water with the pump heater cooler thing and it keeps the water that the carboy is emerged in exactly on 65.
 
Cool! (no pun intended) What kind of aqairium set up is that and what's the cost, I might be interested in something like that?

How does the pump cooler work?
 
Does anyone else have experience with this? This may work a lot better than my current swamp cooler setup.
 
This is not an inexpensive solution. I just Googled "Aquarium Coolers" and the cheapest one I could find was about $400. I bet you would have to spend more than that to keep 10 gallon of fermenting wort at 65* F on a 90*F day. It would probably be cheaper to convert an old refrigerator into a fermentation cooler. Probably cheaper to run also.
 
Yeah this was for a 150 gallon salt water tropical tank... I dont know how much it costed but Im sure the price was up there.
 
Threads like this make me grateful that I have a basement that stays in the low-to-mid 60sF, even in the dog days in August. Nevertheless, the concept raises some interesting applications, not all of which require the investment in refrigeration equipment. It occurred to me that I'm literally sitting on a huge "cool sink" of ambient ground water, in the form of an old cistern just west of the house, probably 2000 gal. capacity, and which always stays around half full of water. I already have a small submersible pump, and plenty of hose, so that the cistern water could be circulated through an immersion chiller and back into the cistern, with no wasted water and virtually no temperature rise. Not only could this be used for chilling wort, but in the application described in the OP.
 
Yeah, it might be pricey New, but you never know, you might stumble upon one of these on Craigslist, or at a garage sale. estate sale, or flea market. Someone might be cleaning out someone's basement, not know how much it's worth and price it for 25 bucks, WITH an aquarium....

cheschire why don't you post the brand name and model number of your unit, and a pic if you have one....that way we can keep our eyes out on our travels.

If it heats and chills, then if we can find them cheaper, it would be a great solution for those of us who don't have space for a dedicated freezer/fridge....
 
BYO Magazine just had an article in the May/June edition that is a glycol chiller using a 5,000 BTU air conditioner. That should work pretty well I would think even for 10 gallon batches.

Good call on repurposing the Aquarium heater/cooler though OP.
 
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