Living in a small condo these days I really dont have the space for a dedicated lagering fridge. When I lived in my loft, the garage had cabinets that got cold enough to lager in al-fresco, during the winter months. My GF has an unheated sunporch at the back of her house that I can use to cold weather lager in. Of course there needs to be a way to maintain a somewhat steady temp through all the changes we have during our odd Michigan winter. The biggest thing of course is preventing the beer from actually freezing solid. It also needs to keep the light from ruining the beer.
So for this winter I have put together my ghetto-licious lager box.
It is a simple insulated box to which I have a computer fan to draw some cold air in as needed,
a heat belt around the vessel,
a temp controller based on the ever popular (and cheap) Ebay aquarium temp control module,
and a thermowell made from a stainless rigid supply line and a carboy cap (about $8.00 total) to put the temp control probe into.
I wont go into detail on the build of the temp controller, its based on the one that Tomsd did for the love controller
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f51/another-tss2-controller-box-build-195713/
It has an always on bank of outlets on the top so you can plug any accessories into it, or to make up for tying up an outlet, and rather than just one outlet for hot and cold, it has the ability to plug two fans or a heat belt for to fermenters.
Heres my wiring diagram for it.
Since the temp controller is in Celcius, I found a conversion chart online and stuck it on the side, as a reference.
So for this winter I have put together my ghetto-licious lager box.
It is a simple insulated box to which I have a computer fan to draw some cold air in as needed,
a heat belt around the vessel,
a temp controller based on the ever popular (and cheap) Ebay aquarium temp control module,
and a thermowell made from a stainless rigid supply line and a carboy cap (about $8.00 total) to put the temp control probe into.
I wont go into detail on the build of the temp controller, its based on the one that Tomsd did for the love controller
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f51/another-tss2-controller-box-build-195713/
It has an always on bank of outlets on the top so you can plug any accessories into it, or to make up for tying up an outlet, and rather than just one outlet for hot and cold, it has the ability to plug two fans or a heat belt for to fermenters.
Heres my wiring diagram for it.
Since the temp controller is in Celcius, I found a conversion chart online and stuck it on the side, as a reference.