am definitely not a handy-tool type guy. I learned a lot from this adventure so next time it'll be much prettier and have a higher efficiency.OH. What the hell is it? It's a fermentation chiller. What's it do? It chills the wort (fermenting beer)to a set temperature using blocks of ice and a "hacked" thermostat. Ice (frozen plastic jugs) sit in the bottom chamber and when the temperature gets above a certain range set in the thermostat a small 12v fan (a computer fan I scavenged) starts blowing air across the blocks of ice forcing cold air into the upper chamber until the chamber reaches a set temp. Why do I want to keep fermenting beer at a certain temperature? It tastes better and I get to manage the flavor in each batch. Different temps make the little "Yeastie Boys" (what a cool name for a homebrewing club) produce different flavors.
The example to the left is water only. It was a test run to see what the difference between the ambient air and the actual temperature of a 5 gallon container of liquid is. To my joy it's only 1. I found the plans for this online and after I fix some flaws in my work I plan on building another. The duct tapes gotta go. I'd love to make one out of wood.I plan on utilizing this the first time come Saturday. The hefewiezen I'm making needs to ferment at 62 degrees. I made the same recipe a couple years ago fermenting at around 70. I can't wait to try this under controlled conditions..
They're more expensive to run. This unit cost me about $35 to make and runs off of a 12v phone charger I found in my "box-of-the-unused". With a refrigerator there's so much more that could go wrong. When I started this project I looked at used wine chillers but they didn't provide the size I needed and generally weren't the price I was trying to stay under.
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