Joe Sallustio wrote:

> Gene,
> I'll look into that cold block but for a first shot at it I was just
> going to coil up some stainless tubing and make two little heat
> exchangers, one in hot water at 150F, one in ice water. If it worked
> any home winemaker could do it. I was considering just racking through
> it, although the pressure differential of a full versus mostly empty
> carboy requires consideration. It sounds like a decent experiment
> though. I can measure the temperatures of the exchangers, I have the
> hardware for that.
>
> Joe
>
Your SS tubing will probably work fine. The cold block just has
additional thermal mass which helps for short bursts of cooling. Not
sure how much that extra mass will benefit you when running 5 gallons
through. The SS tubing might even be better in that case, come to think
of it.

A tip from making ice cream.... You might want to throw some salt
(10-20 percent by weight) in your ice water to make your cold side
colder, and mostly ice... just enough water to make slushy. You can get
the ice solution down to low 20's (F) with salt to lower the freezing
point depression at around 20% salt by weight. I know some people who
cold stabilize their wine by immersing SS kegs of wine (or mostly
immersing carboy) into salted ice slush at 27F using about 12 wt% salt.
Just keep the salt away from your wine.

How high can you lift the carboy? 3-4 feet of additional head may give
just the pressure you need. An A frame and a come-along or else an
engine cherry picker might do the trick.

Gene