Super cheap fermenter cooling

Warm summer months affecting your brewing temps for ale?

Don't want to setup a fridge or deep freeze for temp control?

I have a super cheap answer that'll cost you $20 to make, and harnesses some of your central A/C for cooling.

Head to Lowe's/Home Depot/big box hardware store. Head to the insulation materials, and buy a 4'x8' sheet of that pink extruded foam board insulation...the stuff they put up when they do siding on a house.

Then construct a simple 4 sided box, and a 5th piece to act as a lid.

Then simply position the box so it sits over part of an air conditioner vent. You'll have to adjust the position of your lid to allow air exchange so the box doesn't get too warm or too cold for the yeast you're using.

This was pretty much a proof of concept design. I will likely get some thin plywood and some hinges, and make something a little more solid...actually constructed, rather than using duct tape.
Then glue the insulation inside the box.

Here's a photo of what it looks like in my little spare bedroom/stained glass studio


and here's the thermometer showing a balmy 67.5F
click me.

its not for lagering but it'll keep your ales cooled off in the summer, and could be used for bottle conditioning some beers too.

*edited to add*

Forgot to mention, I keep my A/C dialed between 76-78F, so I'm getting a good 9-10 degree drop with the lid vented. when I had ti closed I was at 65F.

*edited 6-13-08*

I would just add that this will work better if you can get a nice sized cardboard box like from a larger tv or a dishwasher, and then glue the foam insulation inside. it'll be a little more durable and hold the cold better.

 

Nice job! I've been thinking of this for my brew closet, but I don't have central cooling. I don't really need it since only a couple of days a year does it get over 100F around here. My brew closet stays at around mid to upper 70's on a bad day... I guess that's not so bad...

 

All of my AC vents are 7' in the air, but I see what you're going for.

Nice!

 

That's better than what I have been doing, basically the same thing but with a cardboard box.

 

originally I was gonna use flexible dryer vent ducting to pipe in the cold air, but then managed to make space to just put it over the vent, using about half of it to cool the box.
you can't see it but the vent is on the back left of the box, hence why i left the right side of the lid cracked.

 

Here's my cheap-ass solution.

 

That is a good idea, and would work great I'm sure, but my vents are all close to the ceiling, and not on the floor.

 

good idea, but why not just make a fermentation chiller? 90% of the money is in the foam for those anyway.

 

i had the space next to the vent already, and didn't know about Son of the Fermentation Chiller until your post prompted me to look it up

 

At least you don't have to change out ice bottles.

 

I guess I'm lucky. When I set the thermostat at 75'F for AC, my basement is consistantly 66-68F all summer. Perfect Ale temps. Until Mid Sept. My Octobefest/Rauchbier has to be done by then.

Good Job! - Seems very simple low cost solution to a warm weather problem.

If you are stuck at the 75'F or higher, brew a few Apfelweins up to 85F

http://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=14860

 

I wish I had vents on the floor so I coulddo this... I'm getting ready to try to hook something up... my ambient temps are around 70 in my hopuse, but during fermentation my carboys are definitely going up 5 degrees or so...

 

I made one big enough to hold the carboy and a blue ice thingy. I have two blue ice thingys and rotate them in and out of the freezer. It's quite a bit cooler here now, so I rotate them about every 2 days. I can get 6 gallons below 68 if I don't watch it.

 

I'll add that now that its gotten cooler, I've closed that vent, and left the insulation box in place to protect my fermenters from cold drafts. my house is over 100 years old and drafty on the first floor.

I plan to get some plywood and make a more rigid box/frame and then glue the insulation to it. 3 fixed sides, with a swinging front door and a top that lifts off like a lid.

that's my vision at least. i'm not terribly handy when it comes to wood crafting

 

The appeal for me is in the not having to change ice bottles. A guy could cut a cat-door in his son of fermentation chiller for use in the summer months and use it like this...

 

heh heh... AC comes through the ceiling! I simply put the primary in the tube, wrap a towel around it, and drip a little water out of the spicket all day. With a fan on that you can sustain low 70's with 80° ambient. Neat idea though for floor vented AC!

 

Great idea and utilization!!!

 

Good idea on the cheap cooler solutions. Either way the foam for the vents on the floor or the cooler with Ice dumped in would work. I'm in GA and if I want to brew this summer I've got to do something. It's just May and it's already hot as can be.

 

I thought of this exact idea, but I was just going to use a cardboard box. The insulation foam is a nice touch though!

 

glue or somehow attach the insulating foam inside of a cardboard box. it'll work better.

i'd put it on three side walls, and then make the top and front openable. maybe cut one side of the front so it swings like a door, and then the top can fit on like a lid, cardboard resting on the insulation.

that's what i'm gonna do...lighter and cheaper than making a plywood box.

 

A MoreBeer insulated cooled/heated 12.5 gallon conical for only $1,745, no too expensive! "What if" you took a Coleman Thermoelectric cooler (42 quart) and plumbed it in with lines (one high one low for a thermo syphon heat exchange like Model "T", add a themp control to cycle when needed.
Always fall back to the Peltier for cooling / heating.

Those lab coolers like Thermo Scientific has for lab work with cooling coil inserts seem a bit pricy.
I was thinking about the use of one of my small air compressor coolers (2 HP) that has a R12 system, air to air intercooler have it controlled by a stat.

The choice from the bottles sitting in water vs a insulated air chamber.

 

A few words for all you guys with vents/registers near the ceiling..."speaker brackets"...

 

I'm currently designing an all season climate controlled environment in my garage. I have a silly spot where my garage dips out to my lawn about 5 feet and is about 10 foot long, currently used for paint/stain/other misc storage. I am going to make that spot like its own little house with heating/cooling for the extremely different climates between summer/winter here in Northern Michigan.

 

Looks like a great way to keep your brew cool, and at a good price too.

I hear ya there. Lucky for me, my apartment has room in the furnace/ac closet which, according to my reading, is a steady 68 degrees. No vent for heat/ac in there, but that is where the cold air return vent is, and I will set my brew in there to ferment. I'll take another reading when the heat is running to see if the temp holds for the winter.

 

Just a thought for all those posting about the AC vents being near the ceiling...

Flexible Ducting

This stuff is pretty cheap and since cold air falls...

 

Next summer I will try saison wyeast 3724. temp range up to 95.
Wyeast Laboratories. Belgian Saison™ 3724

 

sorry But COMPLETE Noob looking to MUCH research before beginning BUT thing is I live in Central Texas ... where after 3-4 cool fronts rolling through we are FINALLY getting to were things are cooled off after 60+ day of 100+ weather Finally averaging in the mid to upper 80's & since I don't like getting slammed with 500+ bills for cooling looking for ways/ideas of what I might be able to either 1 make to assist in keeping Cool since house temp normal averages mid to upper 80s & most recipes looking like I am Off by 10+ degrees OR what other things I could use to brew (caramel apple mead was one I was eyeballing... ) will to take suggestions or ideas...

 

Belgians and saisons are often fermented warmer than your average ale. Cheapest method is, I think, the "swamp cooler" method: put your carboy in a plastic tub with some water. You can either put frozen bottles of water into that water to cool the thing down, or, put a t-shirt over the carboy to wick up the water around the carboy and point a fan at it--the evaporation of the water off the t-shirt will cool the carboy down a bit.

If you have room for a fridge or freezer, you could also set up a fermentation chamber by adding a temperature controller to it. This is obviously a more expensive option.

Or, you might just recognize that you have brewing "seasons" down there, and wait until the fall rolls around for some cooler weather. Lots of brewers take the summer off for the same reason...

 

I too am in Texas, here in Dallas we've FINALLY gotten some cooler weather. Its time to brew again. I'm still going to use the tub and ice though, just to keep the temps consistent.

 

This looks like a great idea, I think I'm going to build it.

 

Just brew like hell during the mild months to build up a closet full of beer. then take a summer without brewing to drink it

 

I live in Texas, so It's either improvise or don't brew!

 

I just completed the "Son of Fermentation" Chiller, and it rocks! I spent about $80 in materials, but bought all new (except fan & wall wart laying around). In my maiden voyage test I used only 2 1-gallon ice jugs. It quickly brought the temp from the ambient temp of 79F to 62.5. I had 5 gallons of starsan in my primary to play the part of "wort". It was 78 when I put it in, so the chiller had all that mass to cool down. I kept the internal air temp at 66f for a day, then 62 for the second day. Ice lasted 45 hours. replaced with fresh ice, and kept temp at 60 for two days. The "wort" was 3 degrees colder than air temp. So I had a 20 degree temp differential only using 2 jugs (out of 4 possible) of ice. the temperature varies no more than 1/2 degree cooler, 1 degree warmer around the set point, but I'm sure the wort temp doesn't vary, as it has more mass. I have 5 gallons of Altbier in there now bubbling away. Air temp 68, wort temp 66.
This thing rocks, uses almost no electric, and weights only a couple lbs empty.

Build it, you'll dig it.

 

How is your wort cooler? Mine's always higher active fermentation creates heat so that seems rather odd.

Cool anyway. I made some great beer with my SOFC...never did me wrong.

 

I hear ya on the wort temp. My test run only had "simulated wort" (starsan in a bucket) so there was no fermentation. My altbier may be cooler because fermentation just started? Or maybe the little strip/stick-on thermometer on the side o' my plastic primary is off? I'll peek in on it again tomorrow and see what I see.

Edit: Yep, my fermentation is rolling with sub-1-second bubbles, and the wort temp was 70, air temp still steady at 68. So, I lowered the setpoint to 66, in attempt to keep wort at around 68. Cheers

 

I'm digging up old threads here but, hey, that's what the search button is for! Any chance you could repost the pics of your chamber? I'd love to see a visual as I've been wanting to build the same sort of deal.