Passive cooling with blue ice in a tub

[sgreene820]

I have a small 15 gallon tub that I can use to chill for fermentation. Seems like it would work well, except that the gap between the tub and the carboy is so tight that big blue icepacks won't fit, much less 2 liter bottles.

Seem's like blue ice packs designed to match the curve of a carboy would be ideal. The smaller amount of water to ice pack seems like it would chill wort better. I wonder how you would have something like that fabbed, China, maybe? Would you buy a product like that?

 

[ncbrewer]

I can't fit a 2 liter bottle in my tub either, but 1 liter bottles fit fine. You could probably find something that would fit in the space easier than getting something special fabbed.

 

[owmatooth]

i would just fill gallon size ziplock bags with water and lie them flat on a shelf in the freezer. they should freeze fairly thin. then rotate 3 at a time in to the tub and back to the freezer. I have a tub from walmart that holds my 6 gall carboy and has room for 4 1 liter cheap water bottles that i swap out once a day. drops room temp from 78 degrees to ferment temp of 68 degrees. low tech.

 

[JohnSand]

And there are smaller ice packs, and ones with soft sides.

 

[GaBrewZoo]

I use the half liter water bottles from Sams. $3.18 for a 40 pack. Need more cooling, 3 - 4 bottles. Just maintain, one bottle. And just swap them for frozen ones two or three times a day. Maintains perfect temp control.

 

[day_trippr]

[...]Would you buy a product like that?

Unlikely.
I'd buy a bigger tub...

Cheers!

 

[sgreene820]

I have a 7 cu ft chest freezer coming tomorrow, to serve as a ferm chamber. Problem solved!