Beer Forum

Hi everyone:

I am new to homebrewing and am in the process of collecting the equipment needed to make really good beer. I was looking for a way to control my fermentation temperature and already have a cooler with a peltier cooler element in it (you know..the small coolers that you can plug into you car 12V outlet...OR the ones they use on temp controlled conical fermentors). My carboy fits into the cooler pretty tightly but I figure if I insulate the top that is sticking out it might work. Has anyone had experience with this method of cooling? Is the one element that is in the cooler enough cooling capacity or are more needed? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Shivers

I have one of those coolers, They work OK for food but I am not sure about a fermentation. The food is not producing heat. The fermentation will produce heat, although a small amount. Give it a shot. It is hard to determine what it will do because there are alot of factors. Like, the room temperature, the efficientcy of the insulation job you are doing to cover up the carboy, how close you are to fermentation temperature when you place the carboy in the cooler.

You can fill the carboy with water at the fermentation temp and see how much if fluctuates over the course of a couple days.

Good luck.

thanks...I put a carboy in with water last night to see how it would work. So far after 24 hrs the water is down to 65'F. My basement is at about 70F. This might be good for ales but I will see how far down it can get for lagers.

thanks again

Note, the fancy-dancy B3 cooled conicals use peltiers. I've never seen one, but they must work alright - otherwise they wouldn't sell them. Now, the major difference here is that the B3 ones are in direct contact with the conical (they carve out an aluminum block) to make a good heat sink. The peltier in your setup would not be in direct contact - it would be in the air (which is not a good heat conductor).


Mylo

I just have to mention about fermentation heat. The fermentation will create a little heat? That is not always the case. Sometimes it will create a lot of heat. My dubbel was fermenting at 12-14 degrees above ambient temperature. I was never able to get it to ferment as cool as I would have liked.

Good call, you are correct about the Belgian styles, I seem to remember a dark strong climbing enough that I had to turn on the chest freezer to compensate.

If anyone is interested here is a link for Peltier units at a not so bad price. May be cool for a project.

http://www.allelectronics.com/make-a-store/item/PJT-10/LARGE-THERMOELECTRIC-DEVICE/1.html

Thanks guys...great info.....I was able to get my 5 gal of water down to about 50F but it took two days. When I brew my first patch of beer I will use this for my cooling and see how it works. I want to brew an ale which will let me know if any of my brewing practices are off (i.e. oxydation, sanitation isssues...). What's a good first ale beer to brew (probably extract for my first one)?

thanks again

Just an update for this thread....

I fermented my first batch of beer using this method of cooling and using a homemade temperature control that I put together using a thermostat and a relay. It is controlling very well and keeps the fermenting beer at 67 F with only 1 F variance. If you happen to have one of these coolers then I think it would cool a 5 gal batch quite well.