Are there no small, single bucket ferm chillers?

[dand]

After looking through the forum and around the internet it seems like for cooling/controlling fermentation temperatures most people use either a fridge/freezer with a temp controller or a bucket and wet towels/ice packs.

For a newbie apartment dweller, an extra fridge/freezer is out of the question for now as my gf informs me we don't have the space.

For ice packs and wet towels, i work a lot and i don't know if i would be home often enough to keep changing out ice packs to keep it at the desired temperatures and i am fairly suprised that there isn't much else out there.

One of the first things i saw for controlling fermentation temperatures was a brewbelt to heat up the bucket you are using if it is too cold in the area. Is there no small, per bucket cooler that would work? What immediatly came to my mind is a computer cooler, small fan/heat sink, some tubing that ran around the bucket like the brewbelt would. Would this not work, or is it just that the fridge/freezer is easier and less expensive, or am i on to something new?

 

[Yooper]

It sounds like you're talking about a "son of a fermentation chiller". They are homemade, and work really great. Some people use little dorm fridges with a temperature controller.

 

[tmoney645]

These seem like they would work pretty good, I do not own one personally though.

https://www.cool-brewing.com/Home.aspx

 

[Mozart]

I think you might have the same space issues with a "son of a fermentation chiller" as you have with a spare fridge/freezer.

By a small per bucket cooler, do you mean something that wraps around the fermenter like a brewbelt? If so, I don't think there's anything I'm aware of that would really suit your needs. They do make glycol chillers, but the ones I've seen have the cooling coils wrapped around a conical fermenter, and in any event, any system like that would be very pricey.

Cooling is more challenging than heating from an equipment perspective. Want to heat something? Run some electrical current through some wire and, viola! Heat! Cooling requires a compressor, a system to circulate the compressed coolant and allow it to expand, thereby drawing off heat. I think that's why we see brew belts and other small devices that work well for heating, but when it comes to cooling, more space is unfortunately required.

If you don't have the space for a spare fridge/freezer, ice and towels may be your best bet. If you freeze full gallon jugs of water solid in your freezer, it does take a while to completely melt that large of a block of ice.

Good luck!

 

[Revvy]

If there was what you were talking about available yet, there would a lot of happy brewers. There's been a couple ideas floating around the web for a few years, even some commercial ideas, but none of them seem to come to fruition. There is, and I forget it's name, some sort of a lined insulated sleeping bag thing that you put your fermenter in and stick ice bottles into, but that still requires rotating icebottles.

 

[dand]

What i was picturing was a few tubes that wrap around the bucket that connect to a heat sink/radiator of some sort with a fan blowing across it, acting like your cars radiator or a liquid cooled computer.

 

[Mozart]

What i was picturing was a few tubes that wrap around the bucket that connect to a heat sink/radiator of some sort with a fan blowing across it, acting like your cars radiator or a liquid cooled computer.

I would think it would be more efficient to simply put the fermenter in a tub of water and aim the fan for the water's surface. The larger volume of water surrounding the fermenter would be a better heat sink and cool more effectively that the set-up you're envisioning, I imagine. Also, you'd need a pump to circulate the water through the tubes wrapped around your bucket.

 

[Felixio]

What i was picturing was a few tubes that wrap around the bucket that connect to a heat sink/radiator of some sort with a fan blowing across it, acting like your cars radiator or a liquid cooled computer.

For this to work there would have to be a somewhat significant difference in temperature between the item you are cooling and the room it is set up in. Remember, computers operate in excess of 100*F in a room that is typically 70*F, and cars get much hotter. To cool a carboy to 65*F, you would need the room with the radiator to be below that temp, at which point your carboy would be cooled enough by the area surrounding it that your system would be moot.

Sorry.

Edit: of course, if you're willing to modify an appliance, you could run the hose into your fridge/freezer and install the radiator there, but if you are in an apartment and don't own the fridge, then that would be out as well.

 

[MrManifesto]

Buy a vissani 52 bottle wine chiller. Fits one carboy, no modes needed. Combine with temp controller and you're all set.

 

[DrunkleJon]

The cheaper closer version of what you are saying is a swamp cooler, putting a wet shirt on your fermenter in a bucket of water with a fan blowing on the shirt will help you drop a few degrees. Agreed with the others though. You will not find a cheap simple, small cooling type of rig that beats a fridge or freezer. I know you can get some USB powered drink chillers, but do not think there is anything consumer grade (or cheap enough) that would work.

 

[Adeering]

If you are a DIYer you could make something like a glycol cooler but with water and use a Peltier hooked up to a switchable current. Peltiers have the unique ability to either heat or cool something around 20-30 degrees either direction from ambient based on which direction current is supplied.

So theoretically you could create a small box that would hold a little bit of liquid and a sump pump. Create/buy a small plate chiller and attach one side of the peltier to the plate chiller and the other side to a heat sink with a fan and then have a ebay temp controller controlling the power to the peltier.

Probably doesnt help the OP very much but is an interesting idea if someone has the ability to make it (and now I might have another project added to my list)

Edit:

Or another possibility would be to use several small peltier connected to a flexible sheet of material that is conductive (thin aluminum or something to wrap around the ferm bucket or carboy) and hook it up to a temp controller to control the current in the peltier.

 

[Johnnyhitch1]

Sump pump in a bucket with one of those soaker hoses wrapped around the carboy and returned back into the bucket.
You will still have to control the temp of water in the bucket, and have the pump run 24/7 but it sounds like this is what you want....

IMO swamp cooler/ ferm fridge would work much better. Theres no room in a corner of a closet, or does your GF just hate your homebrewing?!

EDIT: This guys knows whats up^^^^

 

[dand]

IMO swamp cooler/ ferm fridge would work much better. Theres no room in a corner of a closet, or does your GF just hate your homebrewing?!

She tends to not like most of my "projects" and the "junk" that acumulates along with them

 

[Ramitt]

Some people have built interesting fermentation chambers by insulatng existing furniture and using a dorm fridge guts.

 

[tochsner]

I just use a small dorm type refrigerator. I had to cut the shelves off the inside of the door but now it fits a bucket or carboy. I put a heat belt on the bucket and control them both with a two stage controller. It keeps the temperature within a degree of my setting and I can do lagers or ales.

 

[zakleeright]

I've been looking at conicals, and recently found this article, about making a conical chiller out of some Peltier devices.
If you're into the DIY thing, this looks like a cool option, even if you're not fermenting in a conical...maybe could wrap a sheet of thin metal tightly around a plastic bucket...Not sure. But like the idea of using a solid-state device for chilling.
http://conical-fermenter.com/info-d...wn-automated-fermenter-chillerheater-for-200/

 

[Adeering]

That article is kinda what im thinking from my post, except you dont need the heater pad, as with Peltiers if you reverse the current the side that gets hot/cold switches. So you would just need to wire a current switching circuit. Or they are so cheap that your could just have multiple peltiers attached to the same block.

Im currently thinking that a block of aluminum used as a stand with four peltiers on it (2 for hot, and 2 for cold) and use it as a heating/cooling plate that the fermenter sits on. Then get something like the Cool Brewing Fermenter bag and you are good to go

 

[zakleeright]

cool, Adeering. Please post if you move forward on that project...I'd be interested in hearing if the heat transfer from radiation/thru bottom of carboy is enough to efficiently cool/maintain 5-6 gallons of wort. Would you put place an insulated box atop the aluminum plate, such that the plate acted as the bottom of the enclosure, thereby helping to maintain an insulated barrier to ambient temps?
Since heat rises, makes me wonder if a vertical surface might be better. Of course, you'll have fans on your heat sinks, actively blowing the heat away, so simple horizontal plate would likely suffice.

Edit: Oh, I see..."cool Brewing Fermenter bag" Cheers

 

[chays99]

I use a Red Bull cooler like the one in the photo. It will hold one 6.5 gallon bucket perfectly. For a $40 Craigslist investment, it has done its job.

 

[Ramitt]

The redbull cooler is cool, but not going to pass the wife/girlfriend acceptance factor, unless you have a good place to hide it.