Has anyone used this chiller?

[Airborneguy]

I came across this chiller today when researching a simple way to make my swamp-cooler method more effective. I already have a great temperature controller from my aquarium days which I employ with an aquarium heater and a fan, but if this works, it would allow me to ferment almost year round in my water bath, which would free up my freezer for constant lagering. Anyone ever use it?

IceProbe Aquarium/Water Chiller by Coolworks

 

[Bensiff]

No experience, but it kinda looks like a heatsink with a computer fan attached. I don't see how it is actively cooling outside of the heatsink so that would make me a little weary of it until I figured out how it works. As well, could 50w keep up with the temp spike in the first few days of fermentation?

 

[Airborneguy]

I figured I would use a little ice at first just for that reason, but in the end, maybe end up using much less ice than normal, plus have a much more consistent temperature. I looks like this thing gets good reviews for aquarium applications, so I might pull the trigger. I have a deal for one much cheaper than retail.

 

[Bensiff]

I was going to say, for that price you might be better off getting a small fridge or chest freezer that can hold a couple carboys. I made a fermentation chamber with scrap shipping container wood and spray expanding insulator (don't use that BTW, just get foam sheets). It isn't pretty due to the cheap wood used, but it is extremely effective.

 

[krenshaw]

i was looking into chillers a while back and i think i saw this one as well.. upside is that it probably doesn't take much electric to work, though i believe i remember seeing the downside was that it only dropped 10 gallons of water like 5 degrees or so.. with ice it would help, but not enough to try to do lager fermentation in my basement

 

[Airborneguy]

I have a freezer for fermenting lagers already, but in the summer, I need to use it for ales also. In the winter, I can use my ghetto-swamp cooler method pretty effectively for ale fermentations down to around 64. I'm looking for something like this to make my swamp cooler effective in the summer so that I can lager in the summer. As it is, I can't tie up my freezer for weeks on end with a lager because then I can't make any ales (or anything at all for that matter).

 

[outside92129]

Per the manufacturer, each unit used can lower temperature 6-8F for 10 gal. So you can get several to hit the temps you need, but it's going to be expensive and you'll need to make a lot of holes in your fermentor do to this.

IceProbe Thermoelectric Aquarium Chiller, Nova Tec Inc