Homebrewing is one of other hobbies. My son recently gifted me a plastic conical for fermenting my brews. It's called FastFerment if you want to see one. I bought the optional insulated jacket to see if I could chill it enough to brew lagers. You cool the liquid down by hanging 2L bottles of ice inside the jacket.
I've gotten it to cool somewhat but nowhere near the performance the web site says. I added a small fan inside the jacket and bought an Inkbird temperature controller and it vastly improved the performance but I could get to 49F with 64F ambient. Some say they get 20F from ambient without the fan.
They say to add salt to the water before freezing to enhance the cooling power but don't really say how much. Online I did find some links where people add salt to water in bottles to use in their chest coolers. I found a few references saying to use 1 cup/gallon.
I put 1/2 cup rock salt into the 2L bottles and put them in the freezer. They are not totally frozen now. Did I use too much salt? Or is this how it should be? Is it best to add just enough and still get a totally frozen bottle?
Thanks,
Mike