Cooling Jacket + Aquarium Chiller to Cool conical?

[brew-in]

Hi,

Anyone try using a cooling jacket like these:

http://www.gotta-brew.com/categories/cooling-jacket.html

and an aquarium chiller liker these:

http://www.amazon.com/Active-Aqua-Chiller-Refrigeration-Unit/dp/B0048IVBT4/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1442878358&sr=8-3&keywords=aquarium+chiller

... maybe use the aquarium chiller to keep water chilled in a reservoir (maybe a 20 gallon cooler) and pump the chilled water into the jacket from the reservoir.

This particular unit says it can take water down to 39 degrees.....some of the aquarium chillers only go to 50 degrees...

Thanks

 

[noggins]

no but it'd be pretty badasss to see some pics of that setup when you do it.

 

[brew-in]

Wow will I really be the first to try and use a Aquarium chiller with a cooling jacket?

Got a really great Aquarium Chiller off Craig's List. It will chill the water to 39 degrees. Plan to use about a 10 gallon cooler as a reservoir. Run the Chiller to keep the reservoir as cool as possible (hoping for about 42(ish) degrees and then pump from the reservoir into the cooling jacket.

Investment
Craig's List Chiller $150
2 Aquarium submersible pumps and tubing $60
Conical Cooling jacket $60
Cooler $15

So less than $300 invested....

 

[Woodbrews]

Any report on how this turned out? Pics? Can it cold crash? Thanks!

 

[brew-in]

Okay....finally got all the parts together. Here is the results....

1) Only in the 70s around here now so it maintained ale ferm temps with ease.
2) This afternoon, I turned the temp control down to 39 (the lowest the aquarium chiller can go). So far it has taken a 12 gallons of beer from 68 to 53 in a few hours..

As the lowest the aquarium chiller will go is 39, I suspect the best I can hope for is beer at about 41 degrees for the beer. I will report back tomorrow morning.

Overall I really like the system. Inexpensive, easy to use, and kinda cool (pun intended).

P.S. Certainly not optimal yet. As I have the cooler lid propped open (have not drilled holes yet for the hoses), the cold water lines are not insulated, etc... So I suspect I can improve performance a bit.

 

[brew-in]

temp 44 this morning....about 18 hours into crash cool

 

[Woodbrews]

Good stuff, thanks for the update. I'm using the GottaBrew cooling jacket with a plastic carboy and am looking to upgrade to a SS fermenter. I've been looking at the Chapman SteelTank as an option and wonder whether it would work with my existing setup. I'm also interested in the aquarium chiller idea as an alternative to a cooler full of ice. I'd love to see some pics of your setup.

 

[dmcman73]

I've been using an Aquarium chiller for about a year and a half now with my Conicals and it works great, I have submerged coils in my conicals to keep it chilled.

 

[brew-in]

I've been using an Aquarium chiller for about a year and a half now with my Conicals and it works great, I have submerged coils in my conicals to keep it chilled.

Do you use a cooler as a reservoir? Or do you pump direly thru the chiller. from the coils?

I now have a 10 gallon cooler. The Aquarium chiller cools the water in the cooler. This acts as a cooling reservoir for the conical..

Then separately, as needed, the conical thermostat turns on a pump to move water out of the reservoir (that is kept chilled by the Aquarium Chiller) into the jacket on the conical.

Hope that makes sense?

 

[pagrider]

I have this set up on two big mouth bubblers and a glass carboy it works great. All three can ferment at different temperatures. That was my big issue with my chest freezer set up. I found an aquarium chiller on craigs list for $50. Its made life much easier to take samples.

 

[dmcman73]

Do you use a cooler as a reservoir? Or do you pump direly thru the chiller. from the coils?

I now have a 10 gallon cooler. The Aquarium chiller cools the water in the cooler. This acts as a cooling reservoir for the conical..

Then separately, as needed, the conical thermostat turns on a pump to move water out of the reservoir (that is kept chilled by the Aquarium Chiller) into the jacket on the conical.

Hope that makes sense?

This is exactly what I do, I have a Cooler filled with water about 3/4 of the way. I then have a separate pump that pumps the water through the Chiller constantly, when the chiller senses a drop in temp it starts chilling the water going through it.

Inside the Cooler I have the pumps that came with my FTSS from SS Brewtech that switches on anytime the conical need it.

 

[pagrider]

Same deal for me. How do you look the ftss I want one. Do you have the brew bucket or conical?

 

[dmcman73]

Same deal for me. How do you look the ftss I want one. Do you have the brew bucket or conical?

I have a conical and I like it a lot. It cools very well in an area that gets very hot in the summer time.

 

[brew-in]

turns out the Fast Ferment cooling jacket is just about the correct size for my conical. I will ask my bride to make a few sewing alterations but I think it will work well to add insulation to my aquarium cooled conical.

 

[tjpfeister]

Updates? Pictures?

 

[bradleyhunt]

Updates? Pictures?

Also interested in this. I would like to use this with a 7 gal Chronical BME.

 

[dsniegocki]

I have this set up on two big mouth bubblers and a glass carboy it works great. All three can ferment at different temperatures. That was my big issue with my chest freezer set up. I found an aquarium chiller on craigs list for $50. Its made life much easier to take samples.

This has been the biggest thing holding me back - the price of the aquarium chiller. I'll have to do a better job of watching Craigslist.

 

[chrisjpryor]

I can get an aquarium chiller that is rated to go down to 32°F/0°C, so I'm guessing I should be able to cold crash to about 37°F/5°C. Does this sound about right? I will be using a SsBrewtech 7 gal Chronical brewmaster edition fermenter.

I can bypass the temperature sensor on the aquarium chiller to chill the glycol a bit colder, maybe closer to 27°F/-3°C. I know this will invalidate my warranty on the chiller, but I want to know if it is doable, or am I going to damage the unit?

 

[Phischy]

How durable is this and how does it attach to the conical? I'm concerned about durability issues to a morebeer 14 gallon conical. It's large enough to hold 3. Use an internal reservoir in the cold room and have a pump to push the glycol. Just need to know that these will hold up to a lot of brewing.

Also, I generally blast my conicals to clean them, so if wort/beer gets on them, how easy are they to clean?

 

[dmcman73]

Just wanted to report in what i did with my Aquarium chiller setup.

I opened up the chiller and bypassed the entire temp control panel and connected the wire that was was being cut off from the controller (to stop the unit when temp was reached) to the 120v lead, essentially always keeping the unit on. I then plugged the aquarium chiller into an InkBird temp controller and inserted the temp probe for the InkBird into the cooler reservoir. Instead of being limited to only 39 degrees and also only monitoring the temperature in the tiny tank that was in the aquarium chiller, I am now monitoring the temps directly in the reservoir and I can crank this thing down to 30 degrees with Glycol. The InkBird is now an external temp controller that turns the aquarium chiller on or off as needed.

 

[iX_Xi]

Below is my JBJ Arctic Chiller 1/4 married to a 50gal cooler. This chills my SS Brewtech Conicals down to 37 Degrees.

 

[iX_Xi]

This was Version 1 of the setup before I redid the cooling box and added the chiller. See previous post.

 

[iX_Xi]

>< SNIP >< I can crank this thing down to 30 degrees with Glycol. The InkBird is now an external temp controller that turns the aquarium chiller on or off as needed.[/QUOTE]

I'm at the point of switching from water to Glycol with my aquarium chiller and my SSBrewtech Fermenters. Have you had any issues using Glycol in your aquarium chiller? Which brand did you go with and what do you dilute the solution to. Any issue with any of the SS Brewtech pumps or hoses and the Glycol?

Thanks!

 

[woo_pig]

This was Version 1 of the setup before I redid the cooling box and added the chiller. See previous post.

Very nice