Conical fermenter cold "crashing"

[itry]

This is a poor mans guide to building a home made glycol chiller unit. Except at "this" moment it cant heat.I have 2 conical fermentors and dropping the temp after brewing can be difficult. I dont have the space for a chiller fridge for the conical fermentors. I recently bought a maxi 110 chiller that was broken for a little refurb project. On building it i swapped out the thermostat with an elitec stc1000. Only because i like fiddling and making things. This isnt hard to do but if you arnt the electric type please ask some one who is. Im a spark by trade.I now have control over the maxis temperature. I noticed it had a python line. On youtube i found a guy using a brew belt it was acctually by pure accident. I had a ureka moment and figured then using the python line on it will work for a temp crasher. Next was the cooling jacket. http://www.gotta-brew.com/products/conical-cooling-jacket.html. you will need the extra link with it to make it fit. I also bought the fermentasauraus jacket for extra help. It was all fitted and fired up. Its earlie days for it now. But has brought the temp down and continues to do so. By tomorrow morning i think it will be ready.note the two temps. Red one is the maxi reading the flow temp.the white one is an independent thermometer on the opposite side of the fermentor. So your seeing the brew temp.

Costs

Maxi110 - £60
Elitec stc1000 - £12
Brew jacket - £100
Fermentasauraus jacket - £20

Not that cheap but is definatly cheaper than a real item. The maxi also has the second purpose of cooling beer in the summer.

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[uDicko]

I like this! Really quite cool

I've often wondered if there are smaller maxi or glycol chillers as they are all quite a chunk. Would be a blocker me buying.

Impressed

 

[itry]

A day later.

The units temp has settled on 5c.

We have sucess. All in all an easy project that works.