Coil through conical to control temp - what pump?

[Yorg]

Hi folks,
I've been picking the collective brain of brew forums (otherwise known as research) to come up with an automated way of keeping the ferment at the right temp.

The setup I am thinking of making:
I've a thought to put a coil of copper inside an insulated fermenter and run coolant - probably just water - through the coil.
The coil is attached to hoses that pass through a chest freezer wall.
Inside the chest freezer - all in series, mind you - the hoses connect to another coil which sits inside a pot, which has a heaing element mounted in it, full of water. Basically, a heat exchanger.
Then a pump.
An electronic temp controller has a probe mounted in the fermenter.

How it works:
When it is too cold in the ferment, the pump and heating element switched on by the temp controller - which circulates heated "coolant" through the coil in the fermenter.

When it is too hot in the ferment the temp controller switches the pump and the freezer on and the heating element off, which chills the water in the pot and circulates chilled "coolant" through the coil in the fermenter.

Question:
Anyone have any links or info on this being done.
What kind of pump would be reasonably available and priced that would cope with this kind of duty cycle. ( I imagine a washing machine pump would not last very long, or would it?)

 

[bummerkit]

Im not much help with your question, but I like the idea.

 

[Yuri_Rage]

You need a prolonged duty cycle pump - perhaps a small sump pump would work. If not, you could use a Procon carbonation style pump attached to a good motor designed for prolonged use. Get a pump rated for high pressure (250 psi) - it will never see that kind of pressure with your system, but you'll be trading pressure for volume.

 

[Boerderij_Kabouter]

Sounds like a cool idea. If cost is not to prohibitive for you... you could wrap copper coils around the outside of your conical and then insulate the whole enchalade so you would not have to worry about cleaning/sanitizing the coil. Also with this setup, you could use a Fermwrap heater directly on the conical side and control the pump and heater with a 2-stage Ranco controller. This would be an awesome setup, especially if you had a frig near by you could run the heat exchange coils through without adding an extra frig to your system.

Ahhhh... you have setup a whole new pipe dream for me.

 

[ebeer]

You might be better off with copper coils on the outside as suggested. I think most would agree that copper prior to fermentation is fine, but not during or after. I believe it's the pH of wort during fermentation can leach copper into solution and harm yeast cells.

OBTW - what capacity is your conical?

 

[5 Is Not Enough]

I looked into this and it seemed to me that leaving copper in the fermenter would be a bad idea. I think it would oxidize or the acidic environment would break down the copper. I've heard a little bit of copper is good, but I dont know about soaking for the ferment. I have no evidence to back this up, however.
Personally, I'd prefer a jacket to an immersion chiller, if you don't have the option of building a 'cold room'

 

[5 Is Not Enough]

oh yeah, you could probably use one of these.
stainless wort chiller

 

[mr x]

A few thoughts:

I don't think you should be needing both heating and cooling at once. Try to get to a cooler area of your house and just use heating. Or a warmer area and just use cooling. Are you needing a lagering set-up?

Coils inside the fermenter are going to be a irritant. If you do that, I would go with stainless 1/4" o.d. . And use domestic tap water connected to a solenoid for cooling/heating water. Or use heating pads on the outside of the fermentor if it's small enough.

I use a controller to a heating pad wrapped around my carboy and it controls excellent. Very simple.