My semi walkin 5000 btu fermentation chamber

I've been working on this chamber for about a month now. Figured it was time to finally make a thread about it. I had a old fridge that I used to ferment in. It died, so I had to come up with something else to ferment in. It is built out of 2X4's, 3/8 plywood, R-13 fiberglass insulation, and 1" blue foam insulation.

I used a $100 GE A/C from Walmart. I used my Altronics temp controller I had on my fridge that died. I bought an off delay relay off eBay to make the A/C's fan run for a couple minutes after the temp controller shuts the compressor off. Hopefully that'll alleviate any frosting of the coils when I turn it down to cold crash.

this is awesome!

Thanks. I've still gotta put a shelf in the middle to hold my plastic conical fermenter. I'll have room on be bottom to put 3-4 buckets, or get another conical eventually. Also have to finish the insulation. I put half the fiberglass insulation in yesterday after I finished the electronics.

The rest of the fiberglass insulation, the shelf, and some of the blue insulation.

Cut most of the remaining pieces of foam board today. Couple pieces left to cut, then glue them all in.

Nice construction so far. What are you going to store on the upper shelf? Also, I notice you have your AC tilted downward a bit. I have mine level and I have noticed no condensation. Maye it has sucked all the humidity out of my chamber, but I do wonder.

I made it where I could eventually have a conical on top and bottom if I want. The A/C is supposed to be tilted slightly to let it drain. I mounted it with the bracket that came with it. It may be tilted a little more than necessary. I don't think it will affect performance. I could put a spacer on the bottom to push it out a little if I needed to. It's about 1/3 bubble down. I drilled an 1/8in. hole in the corner to let it drain from there where I can catch and divert the condensate. Seems to work fine. I ran it down to 42 before the inner coil froze up. That was before I installed any of the insulation.

99% done. A couple pieces of aluminum tape and some casters and she'll be done. Maiden voyage coming up tomorrow night. I fired it up yesterday evening and gradually cranked it down to 48. I'm gonna see how low I can get it tonight. I'd like to be able to hit 35 with it to cold crash. We'll see how it goes.

Excellent, nice job!

Nice work, I have been thinking of do this. Thanks for the great pics.

I'm gunna do something like this,except the cabinet would have 2 fermenters side by side. I was going to use 1/4" luan with 1X1's for the cabinet. And line it with 1/2" cellotex with the heavy foil backing.
The small a/c unit plugged into a johnson controller. I'm wondering if the cellotex fiberglass foil backed insulation would be enough? Anybody used that before? I'm going to build it to fit on top of this fermenter stand;
http://[URL=http://s563.photobucket.com/user/unionrdr/media/brwcrnr1.jpg.html] [/URL]

It took me a little longer to finish than I wanted, but it's ready for brew day. FYI if anyone is trying to work one of these in their budget; total cost will be right around $350. I still have to buy casters, my in laws give me the $100 A/C for my birthday, and my buddy had a piece of foam that I used with what I bought.

By the way,did you find the need to build in some kind of vent for the cool air to exit? I thought some kind of pressure build up would result without some kind of vent?

I can't imagine the 1/2" insulation could have a high enough R value to work very well. As long as you seal it up well the A/C should be able to cool it, just maybe not very efficiently since it would run more due to the temp loss. I'm gonna try to bribe an engineer at work to let me use his thermal imaging camera to see how well mine holds the cold. I know I have one spot at the lower right side of the door that a little air is escaping from. Not too much though. You can't feel it blowing, just a little cool.

looks badass....I'm thinking of making my own now. SUBRSCRIBED!

No. It just circulates the air in the chamber. There is a styrofoam partition that separates the inside from the outside of the A/C. It has one fan motor with a fan on each end of the shaft. The outside one pulls air from the sides of the unit and out the back. The inside one is like a house A/C type blower. It pulls air from the front of the unit, over the evaporator coils, and out the vents at the top.

I'm curious how cold I can get it. It did frost up twice yesterday when I turned it down too much at once. I know the air temp in there got below 40. My thermometer goes down to 50, and it was wound a good deal past that.

Build looks great. How much is the A/C running? I'm just wondering how much it will cost to run. I like the design a lot and my fermentation fridge is getting pretty old.

I won't be cold crashing in it,as I clear my beer by other means. A lil lagering maybe. Mostly just to get ferment temps into a good range for the yeast being used. And cellotex insulation,as used on the outside of the house under the siding is the kind I'm refering to. It's compressed,unlike regular inside insulation. Acts like a vapor barrier as well as wind chill barrier. That was why I thought the foil backed pressed cellotex might work??

Looks good. Mine is still running great with a very similar A/C unit. I've never run mine below 50F but I have not ever tried to go lower either. I do my cold crashing in our garage fridge which is not a dedicated beer fridge. With the probe taped to a fermenter, mine runs about 1min per 50-60min.

Subbed. I've been thinking about doing something very similar, but setting it up as a low-profile horizontal storage unit instead of a vertical layout, I'd need to put fermenters on casters to keep from breaking my back though.

Nice work

gwaugh said:

Build looks great. How much is the A/C running? I'm just wondering how much it will cost to run. I like the design a lot and my fermentation fridge is getting pretty old.

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I haven't had it running enough to tell how much it actually runs consistently. Last night while I was working on stuff around the garage I only heard it kick on once during the 30 minutes I was out there. I might get an hour meter and put on it to see how much it runs. That would be pretty cool.

unionrdr said:

I won't be cold crashing in it,as I clear my beer by other means. A lil lagering maybe. Mostly just to get ferment temps into a good range for the yeast being used. And cellotex insulation,as used on the outside of the house under the siding is the kind I'm refering to. It's compressed,unlike regular inside insulation. Acts like a vapor barrier as well as wind chill barrier. That was why I thought the foil backed pressed cellotex might work??

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Is Celotex like the white expanded polystyrene sheets you get at Lowes?



I was thinking about using it, but went with the blue extruded polystyrene instead. It's supposed to be impervious to water penetration. I just knew
I would end up nicking the foil sheath on the other stuff and potentially have it get water logged.

How do you clear your beer by the way?

The stuff they used outside my house was pressed fiberglass with heavy foil on one side. If they had foil covered poly that might work. I'll have to check the R value of them all first.

Ok. I didn't realize it was fiberglass. In 1" the extruded I used was R-5. The expanded was around R-3.84.

n240sxguy said:

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99% done. A couple pieces of aluminum tape and some casters and she'll be done. Maiden voyage coming up tomorrow night. I fired it up yesterday evening and gradually cranked it down to 48. I'm gonna see how low I can get it tonight. I'd like to be able to hit 35 with it to cold crash. We'll see how it goes.

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Only thing I would suggest is your center shelf should not be solid plywood; but get some type of stainless steel shelving for better circulation to the bottom.

The compressed fiberglass that is used in HVAC would probably be great in one of these. It also has a foil backing. I used that stuff on the bottom 1/3 of our home theater walls and then covered it with acoustic fabric and I still 3 4x8 sheets of that stuff left that I forgot about. I may eventually use that leftover stuff in my cooler if it is ever empty. Not only does it insulate air, it also absorbs sound waves in a room.

kerant said:

Only thing I would suggest is your center shelf should not be solid plywood; but get some type of stainless steel shelving for better circulation to the bottom.

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I thought about that but I didn't feel like messing with metal in it. You can't really tell from the picture, but there is a gap on the front and back of the shelf that is probably 6 inches. I made it as narrow as I could while still being able to hold my fermenter. I need to put my thermometer in a bottle of water on the bottom to confirm that there is enough circulation to maintain temp in both sections.

excellent job!

You could always use a computer fan or two for air circulation.

Could you post the dimensions and if possible a parts list?

elangle said:

You could always use a computer fan or two for air circulation.

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I opted to put an off delay relay on the A/C's internal fan to run it after the temp controller turns off the compressor. I figure running it for a couple minutes would move more air than a computer fan running constantly. By the time any temp stratification occurs the A/C will probably be kicked back on. That's all speculation at this point. I'm gonna try to measure some temps in the next few days.

elangle said:

Could you post the dimensions and if possible a parts list?

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It's 3x3x7.
Parts list from memory:
4 sheets of 3/8 plywood
2 rolls of R-13 insulation
16 8ft 2x4's
3 sheets(I think) 1" thick 4x8 extruded polystyrene insulation
2 rolls of aluminum tape
Box of screws
6x6x4 PVC electrical box
Window A/C
Off delay relay off eBay
Temp controller off eBay from a couple years ago
Scrap plywood I had laying around
Misc wiring materials I had laying around
4 brass door hinges
2 latches
1 handle

Hope that helps

very cool. but does it also time travel?

Hoptimistic said:

very cool. but does it also time travel?

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Only if I get it to 88 mph!

Hoptimistic said:

very cool. but does it also time travel?

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TARDIS for the win. very nice build. i just made one out of an old dresser.

Classy