Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

You should be able to find one in a homebrew store/catalog. I bought one to convert a chest freezer into a chest fridge.

http://cgi.ebay.com.au/Turn-a-Freezer-i ... 2556f6617e

This bloke did it ages ago...

http://mtbest.net/chest_fridge.html

Here's the full PDF for the above... with thermostat diagrams...

http://mtbest.net/chest_fridge.pdf

And then there's the "kegarator" ... http://www.rayfes.com/me/kegerator/kegerator.php

http://www.micromatic.com/draft-keg-bee ... d-785.html

no doubt you are trying to keep the homebrew cool at the moment, but I put my homebrew down to mature over winter in a broken fridge with a 30watt fishtank heater in a 2litre softdrink bottle full of water sitting in the corner. It cost 12 bucks and has dial up temperature settings.

Even if you don't interfere with a heater or cooler, a fridge has good enough insulation that if you have it pretty full, you can expect it to hold the average temperature of each day. ie 32 deg c day and 17 deg c night might give you a temp in the fridge of around 22-27 average, depending on where you keep it. ie not out in the sun.

beer likes to rest at lower temps, but as long you are not opening the door, its amazing how long 5 x 2 litre bottles of ice will keep working once you get the temp to say 16 deg c.

worked a treat in winter. kept the fridge at 22 deg c at the top and I think around 17 at the bottom.

I had the brew vat at the top and bottled beer lurking below.

I think that most of the time the yeast kept the temp up by itself. A fridge has amazing insulation.

I cant help thinking that a fridge would be good as a fry rearing FT over winter. I have one in the backyard that I converted to raise snails in a few years ago. I might have to reclaim it. Then again the obvious combination of aquaponics and snails is begging to be tried if it hasn't been already.

And this...

I found bottling my homebrew in 2 litre softdrink bottles made for a better beer. It took a lot longer to ripen, but it was good, noticeable even to my primitive palate.

Perhaps it allowed a more constant temperature, or just the fact that it took longer. It may be that the secret isn't in the cooler temperatures, but that the cooler temperatures force a longer largering. It certainly took longer for the carbonation process to get to the drinkable stage.

Why don't monks know about this stuff any more. It wasn't that long ago, if you wanted to know anything important... bread, wine, distillation, cheese, or beer, you asked a monk. What do they even do now? Maybe they do know about this stuff still, perhaps it's thousands of monks out there typing replies to your every google search.

Anyway... try 2 litre PET softdrink bottles. Or at least try just 1 if you doubt me or cant afford the longer down time

BTW there are no issues with beer going flat in 2 litre PET bottles. Beer seems to have slow release bubbles compared to mineral water or whatever, but anyway, modern PET lids use magic or something.

Hmmm, beer on tap is in bigger containers. Slow beer = good beer.

Just try it, it's good.

Hey that's an interesting idea BW. I think I read one of your other comments about homebrew earlier and thought hmm, I'd like to make some again. We have an exchange student from Cologne Germany and I thought it would be funny to teach her how to make Kolsch.

Then I remembered how much of a PITA the bottle sourcing and washing was. Ugh.

Thanks CJ, Rupe & BW !

BW - 50% of my bottles are PET (750ml) as you can buy them made to look like a king brown bottle. And yeah, the 2 litre bottles are good - always used to take a couple of 2 litre bottles of stout when I went to a party in Kalgoorlie.

Am still gunna have to modify the thermostat on the fridge as to lager the lager properly it needs to sit at 10ºC for a couple of months. Fortunately this is the same temp my cheddar needs to sit at as well (once I get around to making it). And it's a good temp for dry-aging meat as well !! This is fridge is gunna have to be enormous And I'm also going to need each day to have 57 hours in so I can get all this and all the other crap I gotta do, done !

Hmm. Have you done that before? Have any good links to share?

My one testicled bull has a date with the freezer in 5 weeks. I now get what the term "proven bull" is all about. Don't feel bad - he's had way more chances than 99% of all bulls.

If this is too OT for Bullwinklell, we can move the thread maybe.

OT ? Did I ever even have a T to start with

In my head everything is not only ON topic, but its all the SAME topic

I might start a new organisation "Threads without boundaries"

Does always submerged media grow and maintain nitrifying bacteria just as well as flood and drain?

That is the question....

Well, natural systems reach stasis somehow. My bet is yes.

That's probably true is a fairly constant load natural system.... but with increasing feed/nutrient load... a natural system often becomes anaerobic/stagnant/de-oxygenated...

Whereas a flood & drain AP system doesn't... as long as their is sufficient filtration and oxygenation...

I was thinking of my own pond which is anything but constant!



We sometimes get a whiff of something amiss if it gets that low in July/August. A little rain will clear that right up. A solid day of rain in the fall does wonders. By the end of November it's filled up again. Due to the variability, the pond will only support catfish & goldfish & whatever else shows up naturally.

OK I couldn't resist. Here's the current status:

Seems to be a lot of white "froth" on top of your water CJ... are your pumps working....