I have the DVD. The information is good, but the program itself is very short and could have easily been covered in a podcast. Of course you can't charge people for the podcast.
The low-tech lagering setup is a 10gal cooler that will hold your fermentation bucket. There is a large copper coil, like a wort chiller, and a pond pump in a cooler of ice water. It's been a while since I watched it but as I recall James rigged up a couple of temperature controllers to turn things off and on. The pond pump runs ice water through the copper coil, which sits between the inner wall of the 10gal cooler and the fermentation bucket, and chills the water in the 10gal cooler to lagering temps.
It's an ingenious approach but no easier or cheaper than buying a used dorm fridge and turning the thermostat all the way up. I like the Basic Brewing guys but was a little disappointed in this DVD. Total runtime is about 30 minutes. On the upside, the video production values are very good, and the DVD did inspire me to purchase a pond pump to run ice water through my immersion chiller to cool my wort, which works remarkably well.
Chad
