Fermentation Chill Box

Has anyone made one of these? If so could you hook me up with some plans or some tips.

Yep, I have. Check my site. I have the original plans, pictures of mine along with some hints/tips and where I got the materials and how much it cost .

http://www.ajbrewing.com/Beer/fermchiller/default.htm

How cool can you get one of these boxes, in say a 70 deg F house? Also what do you use to cool the box down?

it looks to me like he has chambers where ice is stored. The thermostat kicks on the little fan to blow the ice-cooled air from the ice chambers into the carboy chamber.

Is that right, DB?

Ok, I have seen another one with some kinda chiller plates and a thermostat on it. Does anyone know about this style?

search for peltier cooler on this site. I believe someone built a chamber using that for a cooling device.

-walker

Yea, on the ice chambers. This is an extremely cost effective ferm chiller since your only running a 12v fan and ice in bleach bottles or similar. But, you need the spare freezer space to have a rotation. As for how cool it goes, if it's 100 in my garage I can keep the fermenter at 65. I have to change the ice every 24h when it's that hot. In the winter (70 here) I cold conditioned my steam at 45 and changed the ice every 2-3 days. You get about 30-35 max from ambient.

I plan on making a couple of these as weekend projects this summer.

I've seen a similar project with diagrams, etc. They used the pink insulation and had lines drawn on it for measuring and cutting. Have you seen that one?

After I sucessfully accomplish one I will probably modify it to accomodate 2 carboys. Naturally, I also plan on mounting it to a dolly for transportability.

Do you have any tips you learned while making one that may shorten the learning curve? Thanks.

homebrewer_99 said:

I plan on making a couple of these as weekend projects this summer.

I've seen a similar project with diagrams, etc. They used the pink insulation and had lines drawn on it for measuring and cutting. Have you seen that one?

After I sucessfully accomplish one I will probably modify it to accomodate 2 carboys. Naturally, I also plan on mounting it to a dolly for transportability.

Do you have any tips you learned while making one that may shorten the learning curve? Thanks.

Click to expand...

If you click on my link above, then on paragraph two there is a here hotlink that has the actual instructions in pdf to build it from the guy who came up with this idea. The pink is the same as the blue just a different mfg. My costs hotlink also tells you where I found stuff and some tips as well. Namely the foamboard. Some additional tips are in the pic's area. I'd start with the pdf. Alos, Landsailor has more info on his site on how he made some enhancements. Also referenced on my page. A double wide would work as well!

Thanks.:rockin:

Not that I can add much to what has already been discussed, but I did want to give a big thumbs up for this piece of equipment. These work extremely well and can really make an improvement to your beer. I have two. The designer is Ken Schwartz who did a genius job on this.

Regarding ice containers, I though it would be worth mentioning that gallon sized plastic milk jugs should NOT be used. They work fine - for a while. But after repeated freezings and thawings the plastic will eventually rupture during the freeze cycle when the water expands. Unfortunately, the jug will be in your chiller and leaking it's contents everywhere before you realize it has a leak. I have since gone with heavy plastic jugs from US Plastics which can be seen here. I've been using these for about 2 years now and they hold up very well. With 2 chillers, I bought 8 jugs and rotate them out, using 2 jugs per chiller.

Also, the ice jugs sweat quite a bit and the condensation can mold if you aren't careful. I always drop a towel down into the bottom of each chamber to absorb the condensation, then change out the towel when I change the ice jugs.

In a 70 F room, you can get air temps inside the chiller into the high 30's if you switch the thermostat fan switch to "on" instead of "auto" and use four 1 gallon jugs instead of 2. You could certainly ferment a lager in them, but couldn't actually perform the lagering step, you'll still need a fridge for that.

Prosit!

billfillmaff said:

Ok, I have seen another one with some kinda chiller plates and a thermostat on it. Does anyone know about this style?

Click to expand...

I built mine with peltier coolers. It is a two chamber unit and each chamber can hold two carboys or four corny's. There is a seperate peltier and thermostat on each chamber but they share a power supply so only one cooler runs at a time. One runs for an hour and then the the other one runs for an hour (if needed based on temp.). I use these for ales and wines and I can drop my temp down to the mid 50's in a 75 degree house (this is only if one is running. If both chambers are on, I can maintain one in the high 50's and the other in the high 60's). If you are going for lagers, you could build only one smaller chamber and have the power supply devoted to one chamber and probably reach mid 30's (based on what I read, no experimental data to back this up).

Take a peek at my gallery and feel free to P.M. me if you needed any more info. I think this thing is great being the gadget freak I am. I can ferment the whole time and never have to switch out ice buckets (there are no ice buckets - just to clarify that). I mostly do ales and if I do get into more lagers, I may have to consider a chest freezer to get more containers to the lower required temps.

tnlandsailor said:

Regarding ice containers...gallon sized plastic milk jugs should NOT be used. They work fine - for a while. But after repeated freezings and thawings the plastic will eventually rupture during the freeze cycle when the water expands...

Click to expand...

Interesting, I've been using my milk jugs for years without a rupture. I think you are filling them too much. Leave a couple of inches of airspace from the top. That'll keep them from rupturing.

The jugs on your link looked pretty good also...(I didn't want to say you have nice jugs...that's quite a different forum... )

homebrewer_99 said:

Interesting, I've been using my milk jugs for years without a rupture. I think you are filling them too much. Leave a couple of inches of airspace from the top. That'll keep them from rupturing.

The jugs on your link looked pretty good also...(I didn't want to say you have nice jugs...that's quite a different forum... )

Click to expand...

Uh.....yeah......a compliment like that could go off-topic in a big hurry.

I've always left enough air space, the problem was that the water expanded in all directions instead of just up. The leaks happened twice so I was not going to chance it again. Jug leakage should always be avoided....wait a minute...that didn't come out right.

My wife uses plastic milk jugs (not going there...!) for mixing up fertilizer for the house plants. Eventually they all develop leaks, and they're kept at room temp. I guess those jugs just have a certain shelf life before they rupture and leak like...

I use bleach bottles and those plastic folger coffee cans. They fit in my freezer. I was surprised however that one of my bleach bottles split on me at the seam(not full of water). Figured these buggers would last forever. Only got one now since I do go through that much bleach...