richc
Regular.
I was given a free mini fridge thing a while back and have been wondering if I could make it have any effect as a fermentation cooler. I'm fairly doubtful this is going to work as it claims 45W where a conventional fridge is probably closer to 450W (at a guess).
I've actually taken one of these apart before to experiment with turning one into an aircon unit (currently waiting for me to work out how to make a computer power supply drive the bigger peltier chip I picked up).
So, after checking the fridge was working (it dropped it's internal temperature to 2C in about 20 minutes) it was on with the experiments
Experiment: Take the door off the fridge and simply place the open end in as close a contact to the fermenter as possible.
This was really a baseline test to check whether the fridge would do anything. If there was any effect it was minimal, the temperature of the wort did cool (about 1 degree in an hour) but this could have just been due to me turning the heating part of the temperature control system off.
I have/had a few more experimental ideas, firstly move the fridge on top of the fermenter, face down. Unfortunately this will need some fridge surgery as there isn't enough height in my fermentation cupboard.
Secondly fit some baffles to the front of the fridge to match it up with the side of the fermenter.
If I get some cooling I might go more radical and take the whole thing apart but I'd like to see something happening before I head down that route.....
I've actually taken one of these apart before to experiment with turning one into an aircon unit (currently waiting for me to work out how to make a computer power supply drive the bigger peltier chip I picked up).
So, after checking the fridge was working (it dropped it's internal temperature to 2C in about 20 minutes) it was on with the experiments
Experiment: Take the door off the fridge and simply place the open end in as close a contact to the fermenter as possible.
This was really a baseline test to check whether the fridge would do anything. If there was any effect it was minimal, the temperature of the wort did cool (about 1 degree in an hour) but this could have just been due to me turning the heating part of the temperature control system off.
I have/had a few more experimental ideas, firstly move the fridge on top of the fermenter, face down. Unfortunately this will need some fridge surgery as there isn't enough height in my fermentation cupboard.
Secondly fit some baffles to the front of the fridge to match it up with the side of the fermenter.
If I get some cooling I might go more radical and take the whole thing apart but I'd like to see something happening before I head down that route.....
