DIY glycol chiller

[berryman]

Have been thinking on this for a while. Been using a fermentation cabinet that I built in the MR Beer days that Screwy came up with and would switch out Ice bottles, Modified it later and put a dorm fridge in with some temp control, it works. But sill have to lift it out to gravity into a bottling bucket or now a keg, also just one temp at a time and I like doing some lagers but like to make some quicker ales also and can't do both the same time. I have a spare 5 cu ft freezer, My plan is to put a water/ glycol mix in it with temp control on the freezer, pumps in the bottom and with another temp controler to turn the pump/pumps on as needed. A true close to a $1000 glycal chiller unit has the coils in the small reservoir with a pump in the bottom.They take up a small footprint for what can do, but cost. My plan is to do it all in my freezer that already have. I need to buy some things and spend some money also. [url][https://www.ssbrewtech.com/products/fts ... onical/url] Thoughts if in the right direction ,

[berryman]

After doing more research, I am not so sure I want to go with my chest freezer idea. Just putting a container of glycol mix would not work very efficiently, if you wanted to half or more fill the freezer with solution it would probably be more efficient but would take a lot of glycol. My newest idea and what have been finding on the web is to use a air conditioner unit and with some modifications would be more like a boughten unit. I have 2 good size air conditioners that aren’t very old and work good, that is the direction am heading now. I have pretty good fermentation temp control now but I don’t like lifting and I think that also defeats some of the benefits of cold crashing by lifting and moving around.

[John Sand]

I thought about glycol and a dorm fridge when I was using a cooler with ice packs. I bought a chest freezer and temp control instead. There are times I do two different batches with different temps, but one gets ambient with minor assists.