30 gallon conical cooling question

I just finished the stands for 2 of the plastic Agri Supply fermenters. I have 2 mini fridges that I was planning on turning into a fermentation chamber, but after looking at them I wonder if I can go in another direction. Would it be possible to put a stainless coil inside via a bulkhead, and circulate chilled water through it that is pushed by a pump that is switched to a temp controller?

Thanks for any feedback, and all of the info I have learned from this site in the past couple of years.

You could use the fridge to store and recool the water to be pumped back into the fermentors. Have the pump turn on when the temp gets too high and turn off when it hits the right temp.

not sure if it would be efficient but you could potentially cool a lot of fermentors with one fridge. the only thing i would be worried about would be if a leak sprung in the coil and pumped water into your beer.

If you could figure out the best temp to keep the water cooled at you could have a temp controller on a chest freezer to keep the cooled water. That would be efficient.

Would it be possible to put a stainless coil inside via a bulkhead, and circulate chilled water through it that is pushed by a pump that is switched to a temp controller?

Click to expand...

that is probably the easiest way to do it. the only other option would be to cool the outside of the fermentor, either with a water jacket, or by putting it in a temp controled environment. both of those are much more difficult.

a stainless steel coil inside and some insulation on the exterior would be pretty simple to do.

Thought about this for a bit. if you use a water tank in the fridge like what i am thinking you could have the water output draw from the top and the water circulate back in to the bottom, that way if there is a leak in one of the coils or anywhere it wont pump too much water anywhere as the level will drop below the output hole.

If your going to go to all that effort, why not just make a glycol reservoir in the fridge and pump it through some vinyl tubing? It would still need a pump, but the tubing would be much cheaper than a SS coil.

After looking at the cost of SS tubing, and the hassle of finding the bulkhead fittings, I think I am going to just build the insulated box to keep both of the fermenters at the proper temp. The 2 mini fridges should be more than adequate to keep them at the proper temp. Anyway, thanks for the replies.