- Joined
- Jul 24, 2014
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Hello again, friends!
I hope everyone is staying safe and healthy in this tough time. My question is about keeping ferm temps down in my garage. I live in Ft Worth, so we’re talking cooling here, not heating... at least for the coming several months. I might address heating next winter if I need to. I usually only do ales, so trying to achieve a temp of 65-68 constantly, but might be interested in lagering... eventually. Let’s focus on ale temps for now.
So I’ve got a 7 gallon Brewtech Chronical fermenter, and the FTSs in the lid. I have a small dedicated cooler that holds plenty of water to submerge the FTSs pump, and I can also put a couple frozen bottles in it to keep cool. However, when it gets closer to Hades-hot this summer, I would like not to have to switch out water bottles twice a day. So I’m thinking about a (very) inexpensive aquarium chiller, such as the one here:
Active Aqua AACH10HP Water Chiller Cooling System, 1/10 HP
I’m not exactly sure how people do this. Keep my FTSs pump submerged in the cooler (cooler, not chiller...), with tubing connected to the chiller? Then, chiller set 65-68 (ales) and tubing connected from its “out” going to my FTSs coils in fermenter lid? Then the coil’s drain tube going back into the cooler? So the order is... Pump in cooler, going to chiller, going to coils, then back to cooler?
With that setup, I don’t understand how the FTSs temp probe works in conjunction with the chiller. The FTSs pump turns on when the ferm temp goes too high, and starts pumping water into the chiller that then gets pushed into the cooling coils in my beer? Or do I have to make the pump work continuously, pushing water at a constant rate, and the chiller only kicks in when the temp probe senses too high of a temperature?
Would the 1/10 HP chiller even work in this case? Ambient in my garage probably gets to the 90’s, but I don’t really think it reaches the 100’s, I’ve never measured. Not cold crashing, and like I said not lagering yet, just ales.
I appreciate the advice, always! My title says “Well-known member,” but that’s only because I ask a lot of questions. I’m really just a noob!
Cheers,
Jackson
I hope everyone is staying safe and healthy in this tough time. My question is about keeping ferm temps down in my garage. I live in Ft Worth, so we’re talking cooling here, not heating... at least for the coming several months. I might address heating next winter if I need to. I usually only do ales, so trying to achieve a temp of 65-68 constantly, but might be interested in lagering... eventually. Let’s focus on ale temps for now.
So I’ve got a 7 gallon Brewtech Chronical fermenter, and the FTSs in the lid. I have a small dedicated cooler that holds plenty of water to submerge the FTSs pump, and I can also put a couple frozen bottles in it to keep cool. However, when it gets closer to Hades-hot this summer, I would like not to have to switch out water bottles twice a day. So I’m thinking about a (very) inexpensive aquarium chiller, such as the one here:
Active Aqua AACH10HP Water Chiller Cooling System, 1/10 HP
I’m not exactly sure how people do this. Keep my FTSs pump submerged in the cooler (cooler, not chiller...), with tubing connected to the chiller? Then, chiller set 65-68 (ales) and tubing connected from its “out” going to my FTSs coils in fermenter lid? Then the coil’s drain tube going back into the cooler? So the order is... Pump in cooler, going to chiller, going to coils, then back to cooler?
With that setup, I don’t understand how the FTSs temp probe works in conjunction with the chiller. The FTSs pump turns on when the ferm temp goes too high, and starts pumping water into the chiller that then gets pushed into the cooling coils in my beer? Or do I have to make the pump work continuously, pushing water at a constant rate, and the chiller only kicks in when the temp probe senses too high of a temperature?
Would the 1/10 HP chiller even work in this case? Ambient in my garage probably gets to the 90’s, but I don’t really think it reaches the 100’s, I’ve never measured. Not cold crashing, and like I said not lagering yet, just ales.
I appreciate the advice, always! My title says “Well-known member,” but that’s only because I ask a lot of questions. I’m really just a noob!
Cheers,
Jackson