You could try Brew Jacket. Their system uses an immersion rod with a peltier mounted on top. It's capable of chilling to 15~25°F below ambient temperature depending on your insulation around your fermenter, and your patience. It will maintain a temperature but takes forever to get to temperature. I used one for a couple of years. An evaporative fan cools the peltier and cycles frequently. No louder than a CPU fan on an old tower PC, but might be annoying to you in a small living area.Anyone successfully built a fermenter using a Peltier? I only do 2 gal batches in MR BEER kegs, and electrical efficiency is not an issue. Noise from a regular refrigerator is.
That was pretty much my experience as well. Worked reasonably well for ales, but lagers or cold crashing was mostly just a wish. Finally bit the bullet and went full stainless and glycol. Love it, but it does represent an investment $$$.I have one of these. I've got plastic fermenters and drilled the right size hole into each, and also bought some silicone sheeting to make my own thicker, softer gaskets. But it works pretty well.
For a normal ale, even 5 gallons, it easily keeps it at around 68 during active fermentation in my ~ 70 - 75 degree basement. It did struggle recently with an Imperial Stout, 5 gallons, though. I was shooting for 60 degrees and it could only manage about 63. But that's a bit of an outlier for temp an how active that fermentation was.
I don't think it could do a lager and I definitely don't try using it for cold crashing. But as mentioned for ales, maintaining a temp not too far off ambient is no problem.
https://www.bulkreefsupply.com/iceprobe-thermoelectric-aquarium-chiller-nova-tec.html
That was pretty much my experience as well. Worked reasonably well for ales, but lagers or cold crashing was mostly just a wish. Finally bit the bullet and went full stainless and glycol. Love it, but it does represent an investment $$$.
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