ferm chamber idea

[JoshuaWhite5522]

I have been toying with a ferm chamber idea involvin making a box from ridgid foam insulation and placing the carboys in a water bath and pumping glycol through a copper coil in the bath from an adjacent freezer. Now I am wondering would it be better to pump the water through a glycol bath in the freezer then back into the term chamber?

 

[atoughram]

I have been toying with a ferm chamber idea involvin making a box from ridgid foam insulation and placing the carboys in a water bath and pumping glycol through a copper coil in the bath from an adjacent freezer. Now I am wondering would it be better to pump the water through a glycol bath in the freezer then back into the term chamber?

How about pumping glycol through a auto transmission cooler in the freezer? Sooner or later you'll have to have a air to liquid heat transfer and the fins would be helpful. Pumping water into a freezer could be trouble. If the water flow stops, the coil will freeze up fast.

 

[JoshuaWhite5522]

Good call on the line freezing. I hadn't thought about a transmission, do you think it would more effective than a tank of glycol pumped through a coil in the water bath?

 

[JoshuaWhite5522]

Another thing, this will be in my garage, does anyone see and issue with humidity and mold from the water bath in the chamber?

 

[CoolZone]

A large part of the chance of mold will depend on how warm it is in the garage (and therefore how humid it is in the chamber). An option, you could use a "plastic wrap" to seal the open portion of the "water bath container" around the fermenter to minimize water vapor inside the chamber. If using a freezer, glycol would be good as referenced earlier.

 

[JoshuaWhite5522]

It gets into the 80 in the summer when the sun starts breathing on the garage. So I am guessing the chance of mold it pretty high.

 

[atoughram]

do you think it would more effective than a tank of glycol pumped through a coil in the water bath?

I'm not sure - You will have to control the flow either way so that you can keep the glycol chilled - a tank or a finned coil will only transfer heat into your freezer so fast.

I can get the air temp inside my chamber down to freezing easy with 4000 BTU A/C unit. It's big enough to have two ten gallon batches going at the same time. I'll be brewing in a few weeks, you should stop in!

 

[JoshuaWhite5522]

Yeah keep me posted. I work alternating weekends but I will stop in if I am free.

 

[jas0420]

I'm also a big fan of the concept of transporting chilled fluid to make cold air somewhere else. I did that in my Fermoire (LINK) and it served me very well. With just a 5 gallon bucket, a lot of insulation, and three frozen 2-liter bottles of water swapped out every few days, the Fermoire worked VERY well at holding ferm temps for ales.

That said, I'm moving on now to an all-liquid approach with glycol running through a stainless coil submerged inside the fermenter, but only because my batches are larger now.

Several ways to conquer the mountain though!