Beer Forum

Following up a thread about the "Son of a fermentation chiller" in the Beer radio thread.
http://thebrewingnetwork.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=2232

I was looking at the design of the SoaFC and I thought to myself. This thing could be souped up Tim the toolman Talyor style.

I figure you could make 3 chambers side by side, all separately thermostat controlled. THEN.... because its propbably asking a bit much to cool down all three cahmbers with jugs of ice (I said jugs....) you could hook the cold chamber at the back up to a chest freezer that has been converted kegerator style with a wooden collar. A couple of fans from the freezer into the back of the fermentation chiller keeps the Cold chamber at whatever temp the freezer is at. and the individual fermentation chambers are controlled as per the original fermentation chiller.

The freezer would be able to keep up with all the extra voulume of space to be cooled, because the damn things are meant to chill to -18C and a standard kegerator would only be at about 4C, so it has plenty of extra grunt to use in chilling down more volume.

Anyway. I made a picture of what I mean. Here


What do you think? All you people with freezer modification experience out there? Would it work? Or am I just dreaming.

sigh..... just think..... 3 individually controlled temperature chambers (plus the converted freezer) a man could get a little firm contemplating that!

I like where you're going. Remember, colder air falls. Redesign with that in mind and you're there!

Push Eject

So, sort of fill from the bottom and draw from the top? That would just mean swapping all the "in" fans to the bottom and the "out" fans to the top.

Yes??

That's an idea. Or have the cold chamber be off to the back?

Here's an interesting link:
http://home.swbell.net/bufkin/cold_storage_box.htm

Can't wait to see what you do with this.

Push

I've seen the Big Bertha fermentation chamber before. Its pretty damn cool.

The "cold chamber" in the one I deesigned (I designed... now that makes me sound like a tosser) IS at the back, just like in the original son of a fermentation chiller. The Top View label stands for "View from the top" I think I confused the issue by putting the kegerator diagram in a different perspective. It was really only there for reference... damn The Cutaway front view is what you would see from the front if you cut off the fermentation chamber parts and were looking at only the "Cold Chamber" from the front.

PS: I edited the diagram to make it clearer and also a bit neater.

Thirsty Boy wrote:The "cold chamber" in the one I deesigned (I designed... now that makes me sound like a tosser) IS at the back, just like in the original son of a fermentation chiller. The Top View label stands for "View from the top"

Please ignore everything I've said in this thread.

dont worry, it'll all be gone in a few hours anyway I'm going to re-post the whole thread because I would like maybe a coule of other people to chime in and point out problems/improvements. So if you think of anything else...

BTW, I changed the in fans to the bottom and the out fans to the top because you were right, cold air does fall and by filling the fermentation chambers with air from the bottom and drawing off the warm air at the top, I think it will all work more efficiently. So even if it wasn't what you meant, you still improved the whole thing.

I probably wont even try to make this puppy. I haven't even got room for a normal kegerator at this point in time. I was just struck by an idea and thought that i would put it out there. But one day I will have a shed.... oh yes, one day it will be mine

I like where you are going here.

Once I get my chest freezer I think I will have a go at this. A few thing I might change.

I would duct the cold chamber and use 2 fans in the chest freezer collar like this;


Now if fans for the fermentation chambers were not spinning they would be letting in a lot of cold air so I would cut the foam to make a door for each fan like this;


I would need to have the temp controller use come kind of actuator or servo to open the door and turn on the fan. Perhaps if you hinged the door from the top or added a weak spring or rubber band it could be blown open by the fan and close automatically when the fan stopped.

I am a few months off from trying this but it could be cool (pun intended).

If anyone else has tried something like this or has ideas please let me know. I might get my hands on some insolation and a fan or 2 and give the mechanism a try.