15 Gallon Conical Fermenter Cooling System

Thanks for this thread. I have a buddy trying to figure out how to cool his 27gal conicals for lagering and i think i have him talked into this route. He can't get the proper size freezers in his basement and building a walk in cooler seems way more expensive.

Anyway i know this is an older thread. Any updates on the use of the dorm fridge?

its not the origonal post, but a similar design, and to answer the dorm fridge question, I dont know yet. i got the fridge last night and plugged in about 10pm. when I get home I will check to see how the temps are doing. I think I may add a Copper coil in line on the water system in the fridge to help heat transfer. Testing it for now on 11 gallons of water in the conical.
I'll update when I find out if it works or not.

Very cool! Thank you

so I tried everything as pictured above, and it dropped my temp about 2 degrees. it was bad, but then I got creative. the mini fridge i used had the small freezer section that cooled the whole thing, so I gutted the fridge, and routed the freezer section into a small cooler of water. results.... I was able to get my fermenter down to 49 degrees before i decided to shut it off (a 30-35 degree difference from ambient in my garage). I was happy with my test and decided to call it good. The thing is uninsulated,so if i wrapped the fermenter, i feel that even laugering in Florida will be pretty easy.
I am going to wire the chilled water system into my spare PT1000 and set it at around 50 so it is not running all the time, and can adjust if i need it to run cooler.
I will post some pictures when I get a chance.

Thanks for the update. I was curious how it would go as i see that the pump is in the bath. I use Danner pumps for a handful of applications at work and they can generate some heat even in 150 liters of water. Of course that is with it running 24/7. i'm actually thinking of a closed loop with a copper coil inside a bath. I would have to bleed it but that wouldn't be that hard. leave the pump outside the bath. hopping that it would transfer heat efficiently yet possibly avoid over shooting temp. I've been on the road so much that i have had no chance to even get started on this endeavor but my buddy has an engineer friend that may have access to glycol chillers, so his issues may get solved soon. I don't have his bank roll so i'm still looking at this kind of set up.

Thanks again for the update

Here's what i was talking about saying that i put the components into a cooler.
The pump is just a $10 harbor freight setup. Garden hose fittings on top of conical, its 1/2" stainless tubing coiled inside, Id say roughly 20' it has (6) 9" coils below the waterline. I will be installing the second temp controller into the cooler to regulate it, mostly to keep the thing from just freezing solid.

as far as expenses go, i would say the stainless tubing, and the spray ball in the middle of the fermenter are probably the biggest cost. I got the mini fridge for free from a roommate.

Nice! Please let me know how this works out for you.

That's pretty cool. I've thought about using an empty cornet in my keezer as a 5 gallon reservoir, put bulkhead fittings for the water pump in the wood collar of the keezer, and then run it out to my kegmenter. I'm going to have a 6" TC welded to it to make cleaning easier. I should be able to get something that small bent. 5 gallons of 38 F water hopefully will be able to control 12 gallons of lager. I've never brewed one, but want to try. It should really help with my ales at least.

I am going to brew a Black IPA Saturday to fill this thing. I will keep yall updated.
I would think the 5 gallon tank would work, my only concern would be that the heat exchange from the cold air in the keezer may not cool the recirculating water enough. Maybe try a metal stock pot or something like that for your tank to help the transfer.

kenglish427 said:

I am going to brew a Black IPA Saturday to fill this thing. I will keep yall updated.

I would think the 5 gallon tank would work, my only concern would be that the heat exchange from the cold air in the keezer may not cool the recirculating water enough. Maybe try a metal stock pot or something like that for your tank to help the transfer.

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I was thinking that for the initial temp crash, since Texas water is so hot, I could start it all of with mostly ice in the reservoir. For getting it down closer to lager temps it might help as well. I don't understand why a pot would be better than the keg. I know the system isn't really ideal, but if I insulate the kegmenter it is way better than what I've got now. The only other solution, which I don't have room for, is to get a dorm fridge the kegmenter could fit into. I know lots of people have had success with old 5000 BTU window units cooling down either the air in a fermentation chamber or a coolant reservoir, but that would come up agains SWMBO's limit of patience. I've already got the keezer, so it wouldn't be any extra gear hanging around the apartment.

ah, sorry, I just re-read your post. I imagine a keg would work just fine. I was mostly saying a metal container Vs. plastic would allow better temp transfer.
I think the harbor freight pump i have would fit in the top of a 5Gal keg. I can check once its not in use.

Brew day went great. The wort is sitting happy at 65 degrees and the pumps and everything cycle on and off just right. it kicks on at 65.5, and shuts off at 64 so its a pretty stable temp. I will probably insulate it soon just to battle the summer months.

kenglish427 said:

ah, sorry, I just re-read your post. I imagine a keg would work just fine. I was mostly saying a metal container Vs. plastic would allow better temp transfer.

I think the harbor freight pump i have would fit in the top of a 5Gal keg. I can check once its not in use.



Brew day went great. The wort is sitting happy at 65 degrees and the pumps and everything cycle on and off just right. it kicks on at 65.5, and shuts off at 64 so its a pretty stable temp. I will probably insulate it soon just to battle the summer months.

Click to expand...

Yeah, plastic would not work as well. I agree.