Diy cooler

[tommy24a]

Ok, have a spike cf30 mostly do 10 gal batches in it. Have the spike tc100 setup cooling coil , pump and insulated lines. Did a little experiment where I put a 5gal bucket full of water in my chest freezer, stuck the pump in and hooked it to the coil. freezer temp was set to 40 degrees. Last nite I dropped the temp controller on the tc100 to 45. Checked it just now and it dropped from 67 last nite to only 64. Hardly the drop I was looking for. Temp in basement is currently 77. Any ideas? Or does it take that long?

 

[yowzers]

Don’t have that cooling coil, but I use the Temperature control system from www.ballandkeg.com almost exactly as they show on their video. Only difference is that I insulate my Fermonster with an old towel or two. I also use a cheap styrofoam cooler to hold ice jugs. I only use a gallon or so of water in the cooler. For reference, their 22” long single loop can cool 5 gallons from 80 f down to mid 50’s in about 8 hours or less. My ice chest gets water pretty close to 32 f this way. My room is mid70’s temp. I have no where near 5 gallons water in the system. My guess is your water is not cool enough. Can you add a little glycol to it, reduce the volume to 1 gallon and throw it in your freezer instead? That way you should be able to get a decent delta T between your cooling medium and the fermenter.

 

[tommy24a]

Thank you for the suggestions!