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This summer will be my first full summer reefing in Las Vegas, Nevada. Due to our extreme heat in the summer months, our garages can get very hot (100+degrees F) and unfortunately most homes do not have basements in Las Vegas. I needed a solution to cool my salt water reserve brute container in my garage without spending $500+ on a Chiller.
Luckily, I happened to have a functioning vertical split freezer/refrigerator sitting right next to my salt water brute container. I figured I could make better use of the freezer and designed the following system.
Parts:
Stainless Steel Immersion Wort Chiller w/ 12ft 1/2 Vinyl Tubing : $40
10A Dual 110V Outlet Temperature Controller (Bayite BTC201): $35
Small Pump: $15 ? (Not sure price, already had it)
1/2" Drill Bit: N/A (Already had it)
Total Cost: $90
Installation:
1) Cleared everything out of the bottom 1/3 of the freezer.
2) Drilled two holes about 2 inches apart near the back of the bottom freezer area using standard 1/2" drill bit.
3) Cut 12' of tubing in half
4) Ran both sections of the half inch (OD) Vinyl tubing through the two 1/2" holes, leaving about 6 inches inside of the freezer
5) Installed wort chiller in bottom of freezer, using hose clamps to connect both sections of tubing to wort chiller
6) installed other end of tubing in brute container. Pump connected to one section, other section hanging free for water return
7) Plugged pump into temperature controller (BTC201) cooling outlet. Also installed a heater in brute container, plugged heater into BTC201 heating outlet.
8) Programmed Temperature Controller (Bayite BTC201) to 80degrees set temp. Set cooling differential (how many degrees warmer from 80degrees F until the cooling outlet energizes) to 1.5F (May change depending on system performance). Also, since nights are cold at the moment in Vegas and days warm, I set heating differential to 1.5F as well. This way my water will stay between 78.5 and 81.5F no matter the temperature of the garage.
8) Routed waterproof temperature probe from the BTC201 controller into brute container
9) Plugged everything in, turned on and tested.
Areas for Improvement:
In the next few weeks, I plan to make modifications to the system in order to improve the design.
1) Implement better cable management, mounting, drip loops, etc.
2) Install rubber grommets around holes in freezer to prevent vinyl hose from ruptures
3) Possibly a stronger pump may be needed (time will tell once it really starts heating up)
4) Possibly more coils on the inside of the freezer will be necessary (doubtful but more testing needed).
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lol.
