Chrisl77

Recipes 

Trying to figure out what mini fridge to put in this. Does anybody think a 1.7 cf fridge would work or should I go with a 2.7 cf one?

bucfanmike

Recipes 

will the mini fridge get you down to a lagering temp (near freezing)? I am wondering because i am figuring out my fermentation build right now. I would rather go this route, but right now i am planning a chest freezer for lagering, and attaching a box like yours for ales. Mine would also use 2 temp contollers, 1 for te chest freezer and 1 to blow air thru a one way vent to cool the ale box.

Chrisl77

Recipes 

I should rephrase that about the laggering. I have a kezzer with space for a fermenter in it for the cold portion of it. I only plan on using the fermentation chamber for the warmer portion of the lagger that needs to be colder then an ale. So idealy just get it down to the upper 40's.

wedge421

Recipes 

Looks great man. My basement is in the process of being finished but once its done this is my next project! Cheers

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dcHokie

Recipes 

My thoughts exactly, what a simple but brilliant idea.

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Fermenting/Aging: Wild Ale, Repas du Matin Sour Table Beer, Flanders Red, Sour Solera, Le Batard Saison Solera, 3Brett Saison, Brett English Brown, OudBruin, Sour Solera, Lambic, Sour Stout, Barleywine Barrel
Bottled/Kegged: Brett Belgian Rye Stout, Berliner Weisse, FlandersPale, FunkyDirtyBlonde, Brett Old Ale, Dark Saison, Brett IPA, Orval clone, Funky Fig Saison, Mango BGSA, JP Bam clone, Rapture RIS, '09 RIS, '10 Oak Barleywine

40Below

Recipes 

Sweet, similar to what i've been wanting to do, but I want to be able to lager. Curious to see what temps you can get out of that setup.

timbudtwo

Recipes 

Seriously blown away by the slide out shelving. Brilliant. One of those face palm moments.

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Primary: Empty
Kegged: Centennial Blonde, POB Saphir Lager
Tapped: English Cider, Citra Pale Ale

dfess1

Recipes 

do you have a stiffener in the middle of the shelf?

PaulHilgeman

Recipes 

Having built one very similar to this, I was never able to get much below 10-12 degrees below ambient. While this was fine for ales, it couldn't get me to lager temps or more importantly cold-crashing temps. Additionally, I was always defrosting it because of the frost build-up.

I ended up scoring a free stand-up freezer that I put a temp control on. I keep it at about 40 degrees most of the time. Inside of it, is about 5 gal of water and 2 pond pumps. A control system toggles the pumps on and off to keep the fermenters at a set-point. I can crank the freezer down to 32 degrees and get my fermenters down to 38 or so, which is plenty cool for me.

This is what it turned out like:




I have since upgraded the coils to be much longer to help things out a bit.

With regard to your drawer-shelf idea, Just make sure it doesn't tip the system over when the carboy is filled and the other shelf is empty!

elpenoso

Recipes 

Looks like a great idea but there seems to be a lot of wasted space between the carboys Might be more efficient to make the drawers skinner?