I gravity feed through my plate chiller so I sanitize everything in a bucket full of Starsan mix during the boil. Therefore, my Thrumometer never sees temps anywhere near 140.
Interested to see what others do since I plan to upgrade to a pump in the near future.
Why stress? Just go buy a keg and tell folks it's your attempt at a clone of beer X. Then put your feet up, have a frosty store-bought beer and take your time getting your setup correct before attempting to brew with that pressure hovering over you. Otherwise you are going to be freaking out...
I have been using mine for a while now and it gets warm to the touch fairly quickly. It never gets "hot" (a good thing) but you should be able to tell a defn difference from on and off.
My attempt with this beer (AG) has a bit too much bourbon. I added 20oz of Woodford Reserve and the resulting aftertaste is a little "hot". I also soaked the oak in the bourbon for a week before adding to the secondary where it stayed for an additional 3weeks. My personal opinion is this...
I recently bought a Therminator and now use my chiller in a bucket of ice water as a pre-chiller. Makes for WICKED fast cooling to pitching temps, directly into my carboy. :rockin:
This was my first keezer, a mini-fridge with two taps in the door. I built a stand to raise it up so I wouldn't have to bend over so far. As you can see, I also installed a removable drip tray in the stand. It didn't take long before I outgrew two kegs and now have a 4 keg version :drunk:
MoreBeer sells conicals that are insulated with heating/cooling elements that can solve this problem... but you are going to pay more for this, obviously. I brew with a friend that has one of these and it works well for typical fermentation temps even in FL. It's not capable of lager...
As a chest freezer owner, a defn negative is lifting a full carboy up, over and down into it. I have been considering using CO2 pressure to transfer but for now, I find lifting 6-ish gallons in a glass carboy, a little disconcerting.