Fermentation chamber - Circulating water through the freezer and out in the chamber?

[bionut]

I don't have a spare fridge to convert in a ferm chamber but i want to make something that will work.
My ideea is to build a box out of plywood, isolate it with styrofoam or something similar and place it near my freezer.
Make two copper tubing spirals that will act as radiators.
Place one in the freezer and one in the plywood box and connect them with some tubing, and a small DC pump that will recirculate some liquid (water, glycol?) through the tubing and the copper radiators.
To mantain a constant temperature in the chamber i will use a temperature controller (STC1000?) that can controll a heating element (reptile cermic bulb for example).
Is this ideea feasible or not?

 

[kombat]

Sounds pretty convoluted. You have space in your freezer for a copper coil, but not for a carboy? You're going to continuously run the coolant, and try to keep your target temperature strictly by controlling the heat?

I would suggest that for the price of 2 copper coils, the tubing, clamps, and pump, you could easily find a suitable used chest freezer on Craigslist or Kijiji.

 

[cegan09]

To do that right you're going to spend more that it would take to just go make your life easy. Jump on craigslist, find a used mini fridge, and use that. To do what you're suggesting you need a reservoir in the freezer for your liquid so that it sits around long enough to stay cool. Then you need the lines, the heat exchanger, and a radiator to sit in your new box. On top of that you'll have a temp controller trying to figure out what to do with the fact that your "coolant" is constantly swinging in temperature as the freezer cycles on and off.

Seriously, by the time you buy the materials to build the box, the lines, the radiator, the coolant, etc you'll be way above the $50 needed to buy a fridge.

 

[flhb]

Edit: Misread part of post. There are much easier solutions that will cost about the same in time and labor.

 

[ame]

Build a "Son of Fermentation Chiller" from extruded polystyrene foam insulation boards. You can find the plans on the internet. Inside you have some frozen bottles of water. The fermentation chamber is cooled (when required) by a small fan which moves air past the frozen bottles. The cold air cools the fermentation vessel. I just built one and it works!

You have to replace the ice bottles every day or so. I have 4 bottles and I use 2 and freeze 2. I don't find this tedious. Not yet, anyway.

The chamber cost me about $50 to make, plus the cost of the BrewPi controller.

 

[kombat]

As you mentioned, it isn't the cost that keeps you from purchasing a freezer for a fermentation chamber, but lack of space, which kombat seems to have overlooked in his advice.

Where did he mention that, exactly? Not sure I missed anything. I've re-read the OP's post several times now, and he doesn't say anything at all about a lack of space.

Perhaps you skimmed over "spare" and incorrectly parsed it as "space?"

 

[stlblues5010]

Build a "Son of Fermentation Chiller" from extruded polystyrene foam insulation boards. You can find the plans on the internet. Inside you have some frozen bottles of water. The fermentation chamber is cooled (when required) by a small fan which moves air past the frozen bottles. The cold air cools the fermentation vessel. I just built one and it works!

You have to replace the ice bottles every day or so. I have 4 bottles and I use 2 and freeze 2. I don't find this tedious. Not yet, anyway.

The chamber cost me about $50 to make, plus the cost of the BrewPi controller.

I second this idea. I built one and it works great. The only modification I would suggest is to make it bigger. I added on to it, now I can store up to 4 fermenters. I use the STC1000 controller with the heat wrap.
4 1gallon bottles of frozen water will take up as much space as your coil and you don't need to put a hole in your freezer.

 

[broadbill]

I dunno, the SoFC seems like a good idea in theory but if you have to shell out $50 in materials you may as well troll Craigslist for a good deal on a small chest freezer or fridge. A chest freezer will allow you to do it all: ale ferment, lager ferment, lager, cold crash. You won't be out much more than $50 for the trouble of wheeling it out of someone's basement.

I'd only consider a SoFC if I already had the material on-hand as left-over from another project.

 

[bionut]

Sounds pretty convoluted. You have space in your freezer for a copper coil, but not for a carboy? You're going to continuously run the coolant, and try to keep your target temperature strictly by controlling the heat?

I would suggest that for the price of 2 copper coils, the tubing, clamps, and pump, you could easily find a suitable used chest freezer on Craigslist or Kijiji.

A copper coil for chilling a small chamber to 19°C won't neet to be as big as a carboy, and in my freezer a need to keep my food, it can't be temperature controlled for fermentation. I recon that maximum 10 meters of copper tubing is enough for what i need, not expensive as a SH fridge that may or may not work properly and will need some service work.
Craiglist isn't an option as i live in a little country in East Europe.
I have the space for another fridge or chest freezer, but not the money. And when i will have them i plan to convert it in a keggerator, not a fermentation chamber...

The frozen water bottle thing isn't going to work for me as i am not always at home to change them.
If a controll the flow of the chilled liquid maybe i can set the temperature and not need a temperature controller (altough i have a STC1000 that i won on an ebay auction).

Thank you all for the replyes. I may start saving some money for a SH fridge. I tought that this idea would save me for the hassle of buying one, and i could make something with my own hands

LE: Someone already did this: http://www.brewgeeks.com/build-a-ferm-chamber.html

 

[flhb]

Where did he mention that, exactly? Not sure I missed anything. I've re-read the OP's post several times now, and he doesn't say anything at all about a lack of space.

Perhaps you skimmed over "spare" and incorrectly parsed it as "space?"

Exactly what happened. My mistake.