Unicorns spotted in North Norfolk!

[Secla]

any idea what these will chill down to ? will they get you down to lagering temps ?

I just found a company online that mods these to run glycol down to -32 degrees

[orlando]

any idea what these will chill down to ? will they get you down to lagering temps ?

I just found a company online that mods these to run glycol down to -32 degrees

Not yet. First run yesterday with just water it went down from 18-4.6 in 3 hours, this was from scratch so the Maxi had to build an ice bank as well. This was impressive as I had 25 litres in there and only a 1/4 of the coil was immersed. This of course was at an ambient around 20 so reasonably confident it can go lower, I'm not that interested in lagering but I do want to use low temps to aid clarity.

I will post performance figures as the experiments continue, hope to have a first fermentation with one next week. The flashed STC is something I have to learn how to use first and I think the temp probe needs calibrating too, don't know how to do that with this STC either.

[chris2012]

Secia - do you have a link to that company?

I've used a copper coil attached to a maxi chiller. In a plastic bucket of beer, wrapped in only towel and
got down to around 4C.

cheers

Chris

[barneey]

Any Maxi can be converted very easily and cheaply, inside the maxi is a thermostat controlling the water bath temp.
Simply replace the thermostat with a variable one, you can then choose what temp you want, if you are getting towards the freezing temps glycol will be required. I wouldn't go too low with just a thermostat changeover as the ratio of glycol/ water will be quite thick, which may bugger up the pump. Most of the glycol maxi's you see available on the net, especially EBay (asking for a high price) have nothing more than a simple thermostat change. & yes a STC1000 or similar controller can be used. The lower you go the more time the chiller will be in operation so life expectancy of the maxi compressor might be less.

[orlando]

Any Maxi can be converted very easily and cheaply,

And you should know. Been playing with it today just using water and it looks like it is running perfectly. I have programmed it to run at a single temperature for now, (thank you Keith) but will try setting up a profile next and see how that performs, if I'm happy that everything is set up correctly will have a brew with one of them next week. Can you remember if there is a compressor delay or a wide temperature set to protect the compressor from firing too often?

Edit: noticed it has .5 of a degree as the set variance so I'm happy with that.

[Secla]

My conicals going to be in my house for the moment so I don't think I'm going to need the heating setup.
A maxi cooler with a stc seems a good substitute for the old bucket of ice and a submersible pump though

[orlando]

My conicals going to be in my house for the moment so I don't think I'm going to need the heating setup.
A maxi cooler with a stc seems a good substitute for the old bucket of ice and a submersible pump though

What will you do for heating?

[Secla]

As I said the house is kept at a fairly steady temp so just a thermostat and stc to switch off the maxi when it gets to low enough temp

I'm mainly interested in crash cooling

[barneey]

Any Maxi can be converted very easily and cheaply,

And you should know. Been playing with it today just using water and it looks like it is running perfectly. I have programmed it to run at a single temperature for now, (thank you Keith) but will try setting up a profile next and see how that performs, if I'm happy that everything is set up correctly will have a brew with one of them next week. Can you remember if there is a compressor delay or a wide temperature set to protect the compressor from firing too often?

Edit: noticed it has .5 of a degree as the set variance so I'm happy with that.

Your be surprised at how little the maxi will fire up, & yes on the STC you can set the compressor delay (if required), don't forget you are not air cooling but cooling directly.

[barneey]

& before anyone else asks a link to a thread on my build(s) viewtopic.php?f=6&t=60518&hilit=maxi

Thank Wallybrew for the original idea though.

[orlando]

Update:

I have now installed the conicals and added the Maxi's to control them. Had a brew yesterday and the right hand one is now enjoying its inaugural brew. Ambient temperature is kind at the moment so so far I have not heard the Maxi making any change to the temp. Still some tidying up to do, note the electrics "hanging" around, I also need to mount the heat sticks to the wall.