Flower Pot Fridge - Never knew passive evaporative cooling could work so well!

[matts]

By nesting two flower pots together, adding some sand, water and a towel, this guy was able to cool the chamber down to 40F when the ambient temp was 90F. He puts two beers in there and they come out frosty.

Check out this video on Youtube:


When I first saw this I immediately thought fermentation chamber, but I don't think you can have enough temperature control. This could definitely come in handy for road trips/camping trips with homebrew though!

 

[KevinM]

Slight problem finding porous terra cotta of an appropriate size. I think that a chimney lining could possibly work for a (edit) soda (/edit) keg though.

 

[bwomp313]

This is an inspiration though. I'm definitely going to try and make a ferm chamber like this. I think there are pots out there big enough to accommodate this. They will be difficult to find

 

[matts]

They also sell terra cotta tiles. If you figured out a way to hold them in place and seal the seams you could build it to whatever size you want. You would need to keep the terra cotta open to the air. Using two nested wire cages (like dog crates) is probably the way I would do it. Building one to the size of a chest freezer may end up costing just as much as buying a chest freezer. But then you would never have any operating costs and it would never break down.

There are some pretty massive flower pots at Home Depot. I have a batch of mead aging in my fermentation chamber that I want to take out to make room. I was thinking of splitting it up into 1 gallon carboys and I'm pretty sure I could fit those.

I'm definitely going to bring a couple flower pots and a few six packs of warm homebrew on my next camping trip

 

[Erroneous]

If only I lived in a state that wasn't so dang humid. Of course you could try aiming a fan at it to see if that could make a temp controlled variant.

 

[schia]

Properly impressed! Thanks for sharing buddy.

 

[Pappers_]

really interesting, thanks for sharing the video

 

[MikeMetroka]

I wonder if one could use sanitizing solution in water to keep any mildew or other issues that come with moisture from occurring.

 

[Bobby_M]

In order for this to work well, the ambient humidity has to be pretty low. I wonder where that guy lives.

 

[SD-SLIM]

Great video....not only do I have a beer fridge for camping, but if I can remember how to may clay pots, I might play around with a fermentation chamber.

 

[jasper9]

i came across that video today and thought the same thing!! wonder if a smaller "cold" chamber and fans directing air in/out the fermentation chamber would work better - like some of you guys make for tubs of ice.

 

[jasper9]

regarding humidity - it's perfect for my area here in Colorado. We use a evaporative cooler for the house instead of central air.

 

[beersteiner2345]

He did say at the end of the video that they have ice cold beer in the desert... so somewheres not humid.

Although when I lived in Gainesville, FL I could still cool with evaporative cooling. Just needed a fan blowing on the towel to assist in the progress...

 

[pm5k00]

very cool, too bad its so damn humid here.