Non-peltier immersion fermentor chillers

[mrpiggy]

Living in a small apartment with a girlfriend has me racing for ideas on how to chill a fermentor. A freezer is so far away no an option. Even a son of fermentation chamber would be trouble. Seeing the brew jacket makes me excited, but the cost is crazy. Especially in Canadian dollars. The speed and efficiency of chilling is also not super, but I hear people saying its fine.

What I wonder is if anyone has put any thought into an immersion chiller based on an old school refrigeration system with compressor and coolant. A mini version. I've seen very very small compressors on alibaba, and cheap. I do understand that putting together a refrigeration system is not simple, and potentially dangerous if you don't know what you are doing. There must a HVAC or fridge tech that home brews though. I'll be the first to admit that I don't even know, what I don't know about this.

There is a demand for something like this. As seen by the interest in the brew jacket.

 

[mongoose33]

Why don't you just buy a used 4.4 cu ft. refrigerator on Craigslist? I got mine for $60. I've seen them recently for as little as $30.

 

[mrpiggy]

@mongoose33 that would be the dream. But like I was saying in the post, zero way to do that where I live. Small apartment with my girlfriend. As it is I'd rather have one for my keg which is taking up space on the balcony and making her annoyed with an ugly (to her) swamp cooler. Space is limited. I need a low low foot print attempt.

Maybe in time. Win her over inch by inch. Good beer speaks for its self.

 

[mongoose33]

@mongoose33 that would be the dream. But like I was saying in the post, zero way to do that where I live. Small apartment with my girlfriend. As it is I'd rather have one for my keg which is taking up space on the balcony and making her annoyed with an ugly (to her) swamp cooler. Space is limited. I need a low low foot print attempt.

Maybe in time. Win her over inch by inch. Good beer speaks for its self.

That refrigerator is about 18" square. Not much of a footprint. It isn't all that much larger than the fermenter is, so it's difficult to see what the issue is. But then, I'm not living with your girlfriend in your apartment, so who knows?

But again: it's not much larger than the fermenter itself, which you'd have to put someplace anyway.

 

[Beerswimmer]

Bigger bucket + ice?