I’m new to this thing (as in, my first ever 2.5G batch is fermenting). However I already have pieced together a temperature logger with liquid and air temperature monitoring using an Arduino, and I might want to actually control temperature in future.
Of course I have looked at the SOF plans and thought about a fridge. However I wonder if I couldn’t just make a compact and efficient solution based on a big enough styrofoam box? I have two ideas:
Buy an electrical cooling box like this one: http://www.frankenspalter.ch/epages/Fra … tViaPortal Rip off the lid with the cooling unit. Buy a styrofoam box that fits my fermentation bucket, cut a hole in said box to fit the lid of the cooling box. Insulate with some insulation foam. (Temp control with arduino readouts and a relay or something. I’d figure something out. Given that the cooling unit is 12V I could even control it without a relay if wired right.)
Basically a superghetto SOF: buy one big styrofoam box for the fermenter and a smaller one for the ice. Set them on top of each other or besides each other, poke two holes in between and fit the fan in one. Of course the connection would have to be insulated to some degree.
What do you think?
The cooling unit approach would have the added benefit that I can use the cooler bucket in future to make a mash/lauter tun
The cheapest, most reliable way to control fermentation temperature is to hook up an external controller to an old fridge. You can buy controllers that are pretty much designed for this exact application, and thus keep the temperature exactly where you set it. Most other options will not be as accurate.
The SOF is a good example. It will cool things down, but temperatures could swing quite a bit, and it requires you remember to keep loading ice in it.
What you are thinking of with the electric cooler is conceptually similar to what I have. As it has a heating as well as a cooling option, it is more versatile. But don’t expect the control to be as precise. It uses a peltier element, which doesn’t have the power that a fridge does, and tuning the control can be tricky if you want it to do better than simply “full-power on” or “half-power on”.
Also, you can buy much better and cheaper coolers to convert into a mash tun. Something with a drain is far superior.
[quote=“rebuiltcellars”]The cheapest, most reliable way to control fermentation temperature is to hook up an external controller to an old fridge. You can buy controllers that are pretty much designed for this exact application, and thus keep the temperature exactly where you set it. Most other options will not be as accurate.
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I am aware that the fridge is the standard and likely best performing solution, however that solution involves either having an old fridge or buying one and installing it somewhere. I personally like more compact, lightweight / small footprint solutions which is why I’m looking into something else.
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What you are thinking of with the electric cooler is conceptually similar to what I have. As it has a heating as well as a cooling option, it is more versatile. But don’t expect the control to be as precise. It uses a peltier element, which doesn’t have the power that a fridge does, and tuning the control can be tricky if you want it to do better than simply “full-power on” or “half-power on”.[/quote]
Out of interest,what do you use? Are you happy with the performance and/or looking to upgrade to something else?
However how is the cooling control by turning the cooling unit on and off with a thermostat any worse than turning a fridge on and off with the STC-1000?
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Also, you can buy much better and cheaper coolers to convert into a mash tun. Something with a drain is far superior.[/quote]
Good point, probably not a good reason to opt for such a system. Also it’s not like I want to do full grain tomorrow.
[quote=“dvizard”]Out of interest,what do you use? Are you happy with the performance and/or looking to upgrade to something else?
However how is the cooling control by turning the cooling unit on and off with a thermostat any worse than turning a fridge on and off with the STC-1000?
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Peltiers are sometimes finicky about how they are powered, and can die early depending on that. Which means that using an external thermostat will work, but maybe not for very long.
My system is peltier based, adapted from a piece of laboratory equipment that was being thrown away at work. I physically moved the heat pumping assembly from the rest of it and embedded it in the wall of a Styrofoam box I built, but wired that back to the main unit for programming the temperature and controlling the power to the peltier. It works reasonably well, despite the fact that it is keeps temperature in a 1 cubic meter box that typically holds two big fermentation buckets at a time, and it was originally designed to control the temperature in 0.2 ml sample tubes. But part of the reason it works so well is that I have it sitting in an outside shed, and 95% of the time I’m using it to heat, not to cool. Heating is much easier to accomplish, and I’m pretty sure the system would struggle if I lived someplace warmer, or if it was inside the house.
I would definitely cool almost all the time and probably never heat. I wonder if I should still just try anyway and risk the thing breaking relatively fast, given that it’s not so brutally expensive…
Since I’m still also hunting for cheap fridges on ebay/similar, a question: what about freezers which are built to cool to -20C (-4F)? Can they also be used? Their cold output is probably much higher and their duty cycle would probably be lower, so they would probably have to be switched “on” for relatively short bursts and then off again… Would this (short bursts on, long time off) be a problem in your opinion?
I would definitely cool almost all the time and probably never heat. I wonder if I should still just try anyway and risk the thing breaking relatively fast, given that it’s not so brutally expensive…
Since I’m still also hunting for cheap fridges on ebay/similar, a question: what about freezers which are built to cool to -20C (-4F)? Can they also be used? Their cold output is probably much higher and their duty cycle would probably be lower, so they would probably have to be switched “on” for relatively short bursts and then off again… Would this (short bursts on, long time off) be a problem in your opinion?[/quote]
My keezer and the fridge I am using now as a fermentation chamber do exactly that. They turn on for a short burst, no longer than 15-20 mins or so, then turn off and stay off for a while. The keezer has been running a bit more lately (it’s set to 40 and it’s getting warm now in my garage), but it doesn’t seem to have any problems at all. I also did not notice any sort of large increase in my electricity bill when I installed the keezer, if that is a concern. The fridge is my old fridge from inside the kitchen. We bought a new one, so I moved it into the garage and use it for fermenting. The keezer has a keg and a bunch of bottles that are nice and cold. I may sell my old fridge and buy a smaller chest freezer that can fit a couple of carboys. It’ll just save a little space.
Insulation is more important to keeping thing at set temperature and low power usage than what is actually doing the cooling. So whatever you do, first start by making sure whatever you are putting you beer into is well insulated. I have 10cm thick Styrofoam for my box, which is a standard size sold here for homes. But if I could have gotten something with better properties, like glass foam in a rigid case (which is what most refrigerators use) I would have done that instead.
