Chiller Idea!! Please Comment

I have seen numerous fermentation chiller boxes (Pink Foam), and I am desperate need of a project soooo...
My project idea is to create 2 fermentation chiller boxes that would have the "COLD" supplied by a loop system that would pump cold fluid (water or glycol) through some radiators from a cooler packed with ice & fluid..

I have seen projects where people tap into a freezer for the cold, but I would look to use a super insulated cooler simply due to the fact this is what I have available, and I want to leverage this in the winter to add heat if needed..

Any thoughts/suggestions.. Also note that I am lazy and the thought of changing the ice packs in each chiller box makes me hope this works..

Why not just get a chest freezer....build a 2 stage control box....allow the chest freezer to chill and add a small space heater for the heating in the winter....what you are talking about seems like alot of HIGH maintenance work.....and since you are lazy (you said it not me ) it might alleviate all the extra work.

Just my opinion though....good luck.

I am lazy, but I love projects..
I can not swing purchaing a freezer chest just to turn it into a fermentation chamber, unless I want to sleep in the chest as well (Boss Lady would make life outside of garage {doghouse} rough).. I have most of the materials so the cost should not be extremely high.. I HOPE..
The other issue is space.. I can build the system vertically with the cooler at the top and the fermentation chambers below it, and just large enough for my fermentors. I am think t will be about 3ft wide by about 7ft tall (or a little taller).

I like the idea of the fermentation chambers, but I am so busy I now I will wait to long to add additional ice and miss out on the value of temp control. I am thinking my extra cube cooler with ice and glycol will be able to last at least a few days (no serious math has gone into this calcluation).

Don't underestimate all the "extras" you will need. From what I hear you guys can pick up a fridge or freezer pretty cheap ($0 - $100) + a $20 ebay temp controller and a bit or wiring and you have a stand alone fermentation chamber that you can set and forget. If you want a project maybe look into splicing the temp controller into the original thermostat to get a cleaner result. Just my $0.02 though

OK I get it.. I may be going for the ultimate money pit issue..

Why doesn't everyone simply do a freezer vs the fermentation chamber?

Also is this project just a stupid idea or just not something you believe is practical??

I can't imagine it'd be that efficient. And you'd have to continually pack it with ice (and drain the melted ice) somewhere. You'd also need a pump to continuously operate. A freezer/fridge would be a much better option IMO.

sorry for not being clear. I planned on having 3 bildge pumps running to 2 seperate fermentation chambers with PC fans over the radiators in the fermentation chambers to move the air. Each would have a chamber would have a temp control (from HD or Lowes) to run the 12v cycle on once temp was to hot (or cold in winter). If I can convince the boss this works then an fridge in garage to augment the cooler will be next.
I have seen a similat setup to a cabinet, but not to seperate fermentation chambers.

Thoughts?

Seems like a fair enough idea, I did pick up on the 2 chambers you wanted I guess so you could get 2 different temperatures. What sort of temperature are you looking to get in the boxes, and your ambient temp? As I don't know how pratical it would be to lager in the fermentation chambers.

search for " Son of Fermentation chamber "

sorry for not being clear. I planned on having 3 bildge pumps running to 2 seperate fermentation chambers with PC fans over the radiators in the fermentation chambers to move the air"

Seems like a nice idea, but a whole hell of alot of work

buzzkill said:

search for " Son of Fermentation chamber "

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I have looked at this and a thread from norther brewer where someone actually used a freezer to do the same thing I am attempting with the cooler concept.
The pump moves the glycol/water mixture through the system and dumps it back into the cooler to be cooled back down and recycled back through the system. I need to test the cooler to see if it can keep the temp of the liquid around 40ish when the pump(s) run to cycle through the system.

Also why 3 pumps?

This is what I built: http://www.wortomatic.com/articles/38DD-Mother-of-a-Fermentation-Chiller. Works well...But your idea could work as well, I know basicbrewing.com used a similar method, but it was for lagering in a bathtub.

+1 to those stating cheap freezer and temp controller

scour ebay. i got a full side by side fridge for 100 bucks that is only 3 years old. You can get chest freezers for free sometimes.

Throw the ebay temp controller on it (search the diy section for more info on this) and you will be set.

Here is my side by side i made for fermentations: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f51/my-side-side-refrigerator-fermentation-chamber-183647/

Bout to test it out tomorrow

I like to keep it simple. I used a few cardboard boxes, some wood glue I already had, a roll of duct tape and a roll of R-14 fiberglass insulation - less than $14 total. It holds 2 fermentation buckets (and stores my gear when I'm not fermenting). I have 2 frozen water filled 2 liter bottles I swap out to keep it cool. It typically stays around 65° in a room that is in the upper 70's. I plan on bottling this weekend so I'm doing sort of a cool crash right now and just added both frozen water bottles in it today. It is currently 56° in the cooler in a room that is 75°. I expect it to be 52° or lower by morning.

+1 to those stating cheap freezer and temp controller

scour ebay. i got a full side by side fridge for 100 bucks that is only 3 years old. You can get chest freezers for free sometimes.

Throw the ebay temp controller on it (search the diy section for more info on this) and you will be set.

Here is my side by side i made for fermentations: My Side by Side Refrigerator -> Fermentation Chamber

EXACTLY!

Whoops. Craigslist not eBay for the fridge.

The thing I like about Son of Fermentation Chiller and similar designs is that I could wire one up with a 9VDC fan to run somewhere I don't even have an outlet. e.g. in my garage there's an outlet but it's basically inaccessible for this purpose. There's no way I could set up a chest freezer there. But I could set up a Son of Fermentation Chiller running on battery power pretty easily.

I was hoping to have a couple SOFs with a single source for the temp so I can have seperate fermentation temps (being run indepentantly within the SOFs by a digital HD thermostat). I was hoping to have a single point to add/maintain either cold or hot.

I would only need 2 pumps(Mattd2), the 3 was a typo.. Sorry

But this is sounding like a quick money pit idea, but I am not certain I can swing the other idea's suggested right now with the limited space in the garage..

hbhudy said:

I was hoping to have a couple SOFs with a single source for the temp so I can have seperate fermentation temps (being run indepentantly within the SOFs by a digital HD thermostat). I was hoping to have a single point to add/maintain either cold or hot.

I would only need 2 pumps(Mattd2), the 3 was a typo.. Sorry

But this is sounding like a quick money pit idea, but I am not certain I can swing the other idea's suggested right now with the limited space in the garage..

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Don't let these guys talk you out of it... It's a great idea! I have a buddy of mine who is currently designing and building a system just like this. He has an old A/C unit that he is going to use to chill the glycol. He plans on having four different chambers, each with their own temp control, running off of the same glycol. He is only planning for two pumps - one to circulate the glycol in the resevoir itself, and one to circulate it through all the radiators. I suggested valves for each zone, but he wants to keep it simple. He will be using a FermTroller to control it all.

You will probably end up spending more than what a chest freezer and ranco will cost you - but the overall "cost per zone" is much cheaper - especially if you do 2 or more zones. And it's much cooler (no pun intended).


Mylo

Mylo said:

Don't let these guys talk you out of it... It's a great idea! I have a buddy of mine who is currently designing and building a system just like this. He has an old A/C unit that he is going to use to chill the glycol. He plans on having four different chambers, each with their own temp control, running off of the same glycol. He is only planning for two pumps - one to circulate the glycol in the resevoir itself, and one to circulate it through all the radiators. I suggested valves for each zone, but he wants to keep it simple. He will be using a FermTroller to control it all.

You will probably end up spending more than what a chest freezer and ranco will cost you - but the overall "cost per zone" is much cheaper - especially if you do 2 or more zones. And it's much cooler (no pun intended).


Mylo

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I don't know if it would be much cooler , diffinately much awesomer! Yeah for going with more than 1 "zone" it might work out smaller and maybe/probably even cheaper.
Mylo how is your freind going to set different temperatures in each zone (or is he not planning that)? I would keep suggesting for him to go down the valve route. Just have 1 pump with solenoid valves controlled by the fermtroller (I am just assuming it can do this?) and the pump can recirc the resouvior as well.

This is what I hope to do...........soon?

EDIT: Not me I just stumbled upon this one day.

mattd2 said:

I don't know if it would be much cooler , diffinately much awesomer! Yeah for going with more than 1 "zone" it might work out smaller and maybe/probably even cheaper.
Mylo how is your freind going to set different temperatures in each zone (or is he not planning that)? I would keep suggesting for him to go down the valve route. Just have 1 pump with solenoid valves controlled by the fermtroller (I am just assuming it can do this?) and the pump can recirc the resouvior as well.

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The FermTroller supports something silly like 16 zones. Each has it's own temperature sensor - and hot and cold setpoints. Zone 1 will be the glycol. It will be set at something like 40 degrees. When that zone calls for cool, it will kick on the AC unit, and the reservoir recirculation pump. Zones 2-5 will be for the fermenters. When they call for cool, they will kick on a distribution pump, their own local 12V fan, and (if he does it like I said) a valve that would only allow glycol only to that zone). Each zone can also have a heat setpoint too (for the wintertime). Each zone also has it's own threshold. That will probably be set to 1 degree for the fermenation zones, and maybe 5 degrees for the glycol, to prevent excessive cycling. It's going to be bitchin'...


Mylo

I bought a used upright freezer for $50 on craigslist, a Ranco Dual stage for $120, and a used ebay waterbed heater for $15. $185 for a fool proof reliable fermentation chamber that holds two 6 gallon carboys and two three gallon carboys and maintains lager or ale temps year round in my garage. The Ranco is the biggest expense, but as long as you take care of it, its super reliable and it will last you a long time. Plus its extremely flexible for other brewing applications.

You can save $75 only to rig up something that can't maintain lager temps, or is a fire hazard, or just constantly requires maintenance and more rigging. In my opinion, that just takes away from brew time.

Mylo said:

The FermTroller supports something silly like 16 zones. Each has it's own temperature sensor - and hot and cold setpoints. Zone 1 will be the glycol. It will be set at something like 40 degrees. When that zone calls for cool, it will kick on the AC unit, and the reservoir recirculation pump. Zones 2-5 will be for the fermenters. When they call for cool, they will kick on a distribution pump, their own local 12V fan, and (if he does it like I said) a valve that would only allow glycol only to that zone). Each zone can also have a heat setpoint too (for the wintertime). Each zone also has it's own threshold. That will probably be set to 1 degree for the fermenation zones, and maybe 5 degrees for the glycol, to prevent excessive cycling. It's going to be bitchin'...


Mylo

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I think I am getting mixed up between your freinds AC sytem and th OP just adding icebottles to cool. Yeah If I was your freind I would be listerning to you about the valves, as I reackon he'll get some reasonable cooling even without the fans. Tell him some random guy on the internet agrees with you and he should do it your way!

mattd2 said:

I think I am getting mixed up between your freinds AC sytem and th OP just adding icebottles to cool. Yeah If I was your freind I would be listerning to you about the valves, as I reackon he'll get some reasonable cooling even without the fans. Tell him some random guy on the internet agrees with you and he should do it your way!

Click to expand...

Thanks folks.
I saw this video and another one similar to this. I wanted to have a few zones so I could brew at batches at different temps, but I was hoping to start out with a cooler and migrate to a fridge/freezer for the cooling source, and during the winter I could use a fishtank heater to raise the temps