BobTheFourth
Well-Known Member
First of all, this is my first post in this forum, so Hello Everyone!
I'm about to make the switch to kegging my homebrew instead of bottling, because bottling is a pain in the butt. My plan is to use a chest freezer to hold the kegs - I've picked out one big enough to hold four, plus a carboy on the hump. But that's just the background - it occurred to me that I may be able to use this machine to power an external ale fermentation chamber as well, and was wondering if anyone had tried this and what the results were. Searches on this forum and the internet didn't really turn anything up that sounded similar to my idea.
What I was thinking of doing is adding a collar to the chest freezer and hooking up some 3-4" diameter insulated ducts - one for an inlet and one for an outlet. These would run to an insulated chamber big enough to hold a couple carboys. A temperature controller would turn on a fan mounted in the exhaust duct when the temperature dropped below a typical ale fermentation set point, thus circulating cold air up from the freezer.
Another (more expensive) option I considered was using a system of copper pipes & coils filled with water to move the heat instead. This would require the temperature controller to modulate a small pump, but might be more efficient and responsive. The coil in the freezer could be immersed in a cold water bath to improve heat transfer.
Thoughts? Sound crazy, or doable?
I'm about to make the switch to kegging my homebrew instead of bottling, because bottling is a pain in the butt. My plan is to use a chest freezer to hold the kegs - I've picked out one big enough to hold four, plus a carboy on the hump. But that's just the background - it occurred to me that I may be able to use this machine to power an external ale fermentation chamber as well, and was wondering if anyone had tried this and what the results were. Searches on this forum and the internet didn't really turn anything up that sounded similar to my idea.
What I was thinking of doing is adding a collar to the chest freezer and hooking up some 3-4" diameter insulated ducts - one for an inlet and one for an outlet. These would run to an insulated chamber big enough to hold a couple carboys. A temperature controller would turn on a fan mounted in the exhaust duct when the temperature dropped below a typical ale fermentation set point, thus circulating cold air up from the freezer.
Another (more expensive) option I considered was using a system of copper pipes & coils filled with water to move the heat instead. This would require the temperature controller to modulate a small pump, but might be more efficient and responsive. The coil in the freezer could be immersed in a cold water bath to improve heat transfer.
Thoughts? Sound crazy, or doable?