Temperature control: peltier?

So I have come to understand that fermentation temp can have quite the effect on your final brew, and I have seen some ideas for raising fermentation temp (aquarium heaters, heat pads, etc), but how about lowering it?

my household temp is between 60 and 70, but can get higher (which is my worry, don't want any ) when I have company or forget to turn the heater off (ceiling heat isn't very uniform).

If I put my primary outside I feel I am exposing it to contamination, and also am worried that it might be too cold (and certainly not well controlled).
Refrigerators don't generally have settings in the 60s or 70s, nor do I have room or money for one.
I don't think SWMBO would appreciate my primaries sitting in the only bathtub either

Has anyone used, or considered using a peltier (a thermoelectric semiconductor that, when electricity is applied, creates a hot side and a cold side, i.e. a solid state heat pump)

any other good ways to regulate (and lower) temp?

I have looked at peltier's, they aren't (or weren't) very efficient and don;t provide much temp change from ambient (lagering).

I have a chest freezer and Ranco controller. Big one but it was free. If I had it to do again I'd just get a small 5 cuft freezer. Maybe two.

Yuri Rage tried it a while back and made a big thread about it. It didn't look all that promising.

The hot side with the fan blowing on it is enough to raise the temp in a small, enclosed space (like a closet or similar), which of course affects the cold side.

I think you could get it to work for small temperature differentials but at that point...is it worth it? Just a big bucket (of some sort) with water in it and adding frozen water bottles/blue ice packs once or twice a day for the first few days seems easier. You don't have to keep the temps cool for the whole time in primary, just from yeast-pitch until the 'main' fermentation subsides. After a few days (after fermentation subsides) I just leave them at ambient.

You might look into Yooper fermentation cube too. Small footprint, adequate results.

I used one last year to ferment my Moktoberfest. I was able to get it down to about 55*. This was a carboy in a 60qt ice cube cooler with a rigid insulation top. I think ambient was in the mid 70's. It did what I needed to do but I decided to go with a full fermentation chamber.

boredatwork said:

http://www.haieramerica.com/en/product/C-RNU281VS

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Think you can fit a couple cornies in there?

I certainly understand the appeal of peltier cooling. I sank a good bit of time and effort into making it work: various power supplies, computer liquid cooling parts, heat sinks and radiators, large and small peltier devices, glycol reservoirs, etc. I wasn't able to get anything like the temp delta shown on the specs. Without a load (with nothing on the cold side) frost would form immediately, but try to cool any volume of liquid and it struggled to take the temp down much at all. It wasn't going to be suitable for my needs, sadly, but I was aiming high (keeping the fermenter in my garage in the summer).

For cost reasons, I strongly suggest you look at one of the small fridges. Once you get to the 4 cu. ft. range or so, you can support multiple cornies or a fermenter. Chest freezers are also pretty low profile and come in a variety of sizes - and typically there's not much wasted vertical space. They also can be had cheap used.

If you're dead set on fabricating a cooling solution (I wouldn't blame you - I'll readily admit I'm in this at least partially for the gadgetry) you might want to consider modifying a small window AC unit to chill a fermentation chamber or a glycol reservoir. Several threads on both subjects exist.

I'm happy to share my experience with peltiers if desired. Pictures and part numbers if needed.

airving said:

If you're dead set on fabricating a cooling solution (I wouldn't blame you - I'll readily admit I'm in this at least partially for the gadgetry) you might want to consider modifying a small window AC unit to chill a fermentation chamber or a glycol reservoir. Several threads on both subjects exist.
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haha I too am in it partially for the gadgetry (chemical engineering student). I was actually thinking about how I might take apart an old fridge and turn it into a wort chiller the other day. OT sorry, but I'm glad I'm not the only gadget-phile

BrewSpook said:

Think you can fit a couple cornies in there?

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Definitely not. But a carboy will just barely fit. A lot of the cheaper wine coolers will also have thermoelectric cooling. The problem is that this kind of cooler has several limitations - minimum temperature limitations and limited ability to cool down large thermal mass.

I think the point is that thermoelectric is not really the way to go. As mentioned there have been several posts on this topic already showing some experiments performed (and failed).

Cooling is always much harder to do than heating. I think your cheapest solution could be to build an insulated cooling box. Go to the hardware store and buy a sheet of rigid foam insulation. Two inch thick XPS foam is about $22 and you get 32 square feet. Now depending on what fermentor you use, you would cut it (table saw works awesome, hand saw can get messy) to size and form a box around your container. You can glue it if you want, but I would just use tape so you can disassemble it if you need to

I think building an insulated chamber is the best first step. An object exposed to the atmosphere is very inefficient at holding heat (or keeping out heat.)
I see fermentors with heaters and they are exposed to the atmosphere.. pff. That is like leaving your fridge door cracked open.