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Personal Project - A Cooling / Heating Blanket
I want to see if anyone here has thoughts on this. I don't know why, but I am currently too stubborn to simply go out and buy a small fridge to do some lagering in. The thing is, I find myself craving a good lager these days and would love to have a few going during the summer months.
That being said, I started to think about how I could get a really good temp control for my beer - no matter what time of year it is. I may have a start to the plan, but would love some input (if anyone wants to "nerd it up").
The idea revolves around a peltier/TEC device. Below is a picture of a peltier device:
The idea is pretty simple, but rather than going into it detail, one side gets hot while the other side gets cold. If you reverse the polarity to the device, the sides switch.
What I am currently thinking is to create a sort of "jacket" for a carboy, keg, or whatever you have your beer in. The jacket would be made of neoprene or some other similar material and would have cutouts for the peltier devices. The entire jacket would be hooked up to a temperature control which would regulate the temps. If you want to keep your beer at 55 degrees and it is 70 degrees one day, then the temperature control would have the peltiers act as a cooling device. If, on the other hand, the temperature drops down to 40 degrees (not uncommon for big swings like that here in Minnesota), then the jacket would reverse polarity and act as a warmer.
Now this whole thing might be a bit cost-prohibitive, and I'm not exactly sure just how hot the devices would get. Has anyone used them before? Is there anything obvious that I am overlooking?
I know one thing about peltiers effect is that it usually can't get much than 20 degrees below room temperature. I bought a wine cooler than used the same effect (was intended to keep reserve beers in) and it has never been able to get below 50 degrees in our house. I did some research and found out that peltiers is great for reducing temperature but not to an extreme (such as some lagering temperatures in the 40's unless you keep your house in the mid 60's) My fiancee won't let it get colder than 70 in our house so it just doesn't get cool enough. Thats all I know about peltiers and cooling, good luck!
Hmmm...I've seen peltiers with frost that forms on them because they get so cold. I'll have to look into this more, though.
Must just be the kind that is used in the cooler I have. I hope it works for ya
The only use of a peltier like device was to cool a CPU in a computer....condensation was a concern obviously, and I haven't heard anything else on them........sounds like an interesting idea, but would the cost to consumer be feasible?.....
I'm trying to figure that out. The neoprene might be a bit hard to come by, so an alternative might be in order.
basementbrewer - I checked in on what you said a little more and evidently bringing a temp down is quite difficult to do, however, maintaining a lower temperature is much easier for the device to do. This idea calls for having the peltier modules in direct contact with the carboy or keg which I imagine should help tremendously.
I believe that MoreBeer uses peltier heat sinks to cool their conicals.
I think you can get the beer as cool as you want it, its just a matter of size and style of peltier
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