Fermentation Chamber build

Hi everyone. I've been lurking the past few weeks and really learning a lot from everyone. Since it is the slow season for my job I decided to build a couple of projects for my home brewery. First thing I did was build a workbench for the cellar, where I do all of my fermenting and and storing of my equipment and bottled beer.




I also wanted to have better control over my fermentation temps down there so I am in process of building a fermentation chamber that will fit neatly underneath the work bench. I decided to go with the stc-1000 controller because it seemed like a fun and easy build. I'm waiting for some neutrik powerCon connectors to be shipped from markertek that I'm using for my power connections before I can finish the controller.








And here is the chamber so far









I'm going to use 1.5" r max insulation for the inside and I've got an old mini fridge in storage that I'm going to cannibalize for the cooling innards and use a 40 watt ceramic reptile heater lamp for the heating source. I bought an ac fan from my local electronic parts store that I'm going to trigger with a relay.

Looking great! Looks like you have some priorities in line...

Thanks. Yeah I do have some priorities in mind. I want to focus on yeast health and fermentation. So that my outcomes are consistent

do you have a stir plate for building yeast starters yet? That will be a huge step for yeast health.

Not yet. I'm going to be building one this week. It's one of a couple projects I'm tackling this week.

subscribed! looking forward to watching your process!

Looks like a busy week. The DIY stirplate is awesome. Easy to do and way cheaper!

Here is some of yesterday's progress.

I got the front test fitted and the doors cut out.




I discovered that the racks I bought aren't exactly 24" wide so once the insulation goes in there will be about 1.5" gap between them. So in the future if I ever want to make this a two chamber build, so I can lager on one side, I have the option.
I started wiring up the electrical for the compressor, the heat lamp and circulation fan.




I got the controller 90% complete, enough that I was able to power it up and make sure it was seeing the probe. The parts, neutrik powerCon out connectors, I have ordered from markertek won't arrive till the end of the day Monday. Those will go in the holes you see.

Got everything mocked up and painted



Test fitted the insulation panels before disassembling the whole thing in order to move it into my cellar



Reassembled in the cellar and glued the back, sides and floor insulation in place



Tomorrow I hope to get the doors painted and the rest of the insulation cut and glued in place. Saturday I plan on installing the refrigerator lines, circulation fan and the heat lamp.

That looks pretty great so far. I built a temporary fermentation chamber using the same wire shelving inside to hold the carboys. You may want to fill up two carboys with 6 gallons of water and put them on the shelving to see how much they flex when they're in place. Each section of the shelving holds two 6 gallon better bottles but they flex so much that they dip toward each section's center.

You may want reinforcing each section before you build it into the final chamber, but consider at least checking how much they'll flex when under full load.

Whenever I see builds like this I'm always curious to know what the estimated cost is? Is this a money saving endeavor? Or just because you like building stuff? Or because you want control over how big it is, how it looks and where it fits in your house which you may not be able to get from a chest freezer? Or a combination of all of these?

Chest freezer is the way I ultimately have decided to go with my ferm chamber. I had the space available though... A chest feezer may not have fit in the OP's cellar though. He had to take apart his Ferm Chamber to get it down in there...

Looking good.
Inhousebrew, I use a chest freezer right now but in the long run I would like to build a cold room off my garage. For me the chest freezer works great and got it for cheap so I have no complants. but I am limited to amount that can fit inside so if I have more than can fit in my keezer and my chest freezer could have something fermenting they I may run into a time when I have some kegs sitting in a non temp controled area.
I might not ever get around to making the cold room and might never have a keg not temp controlled, just my thoughts on it.

I haven't costed this project out yet and part of me doesn't want to. Haha. Buying a Craigslist freezer would probably have been cheaper but the issue is the doorway and stairs down to the cellar are narrow and I wouldn't have been able to get one down there. I enjoy building things and up till now I've never really worked in wood, my brother has been the woodworker.. Everything I've built has been electronic based. Space is also limited in my cellar so I designed the chamber to fit neatly under the workbench that I built.

CapnBry that's a good point and I'll definitely test that. Though I did drill out holes in the foam for the legs to slide into so if the racks do flex they won't flex very far. The shelves I got say that each shelf is rated for 250 lbs max so I hope that they won't have any flex with 100 lbs of beer siting on them. Then again those ratings are probably lies.

In this image, the corner posts have much less insulation on them than the rest of the chamber. You may want to consider applying some "great stuff" foam insulation spray to all the joints... Couldn't hurt.

Huaco said:

In this image, the corner posts have much less insulation on them than the rest of the chamber. You may want to consider applying some "great stuff" foam insulation spray to all the joints... Couldn't hurt.

Click to expand...

It's on it's back in that picture. I do have a can of great stuff that I'm going to spray into the empty crevices. I'm hopefully going to have this thing up and running by Tuesday.

Yesterday I had to work so I wasn't able to get much done on this project. So today I went at it hard and managed to get it 98% done.

Here the racks, refrigerator unit, fan and light socket for the heat lamp are installed and ready for the lid to get screwed on.



The evaporator coil, socket and fan to circulate the air






The whole thing tucked neatly underneath the workbench I made last weekend



The old fridge guts



A couple shots of the wiring






The power input panel. The 2.5mm jack is for the temp probe.



Man it was a long day but it was worth it. The only thing left to finish on it is an empty white labs yeast vial to put the probe in immersed in water and the grey powerCon connectors for the control box. I'm thinking of getting two magnetic dry erase boards to mount on the doors to keep track of what's inside.

Nice work! I spent way more on my ferm chamber than I needed to as well, but it was fun to build something from a pile of wood, insulation, and some wiring.

La_Moustachio said:

The only thing left to finish on it is an empty white labs yeast vial to put the probe in immersed in water and the grey powerCon connectors for the control box.

Click to expand...

Wrong answer, you still need to get some fermenting beer in there!

La_Moustachio said:

The only thing left to finish on it is an empty white labs yeast vial to put the probe in immersed in water

Click to expand...

I still don't understand why people do this. You are adding the smallest amount of thermal mass to your temp sensor. You are better off taping the probe to the side of a carboy and covering that with some insulation. Then you will be as close to measuring the actual beer temp without putting the probe inside the carboy.

Right. I've started using thermowells in all my fermentors... I am starting to control each independently.

inhousebrew said:

Wrong answer, you still need to get some fermenting beer in there!

Click to expand...

Yes of course! How could I have forgotten

crane said:

I still don't understand why people do this. You are adding the smallest amount of thermal mass to your temp sensor. You are better off taping the probe to the side of a carboy and covering that with some insulation. Then you will be as close to measuring the actual beer temp without putting the probe inside the carboy.

Click to expand...

Through some trial and error I hope to use the calibration function, which goes +-10*C, on the stc1000 to compensate for the smaller thermal mass of the yeast vial than carboys of fermenting beer. If that doesn't work then maybe thermowells will be necessary.

I finished running the power to a new quad outlet on the other side of the cellar, where the workbench and chamber are located. So I was able to test each side of the chamber just to make sure my wiring worked and nothing was going to catch fire. Thankfully everything is wired correctly and the fan is coming on when either heat or cooling is applied.
It's Alive!



Now I can't wait to brew tomorrow!

I finished the the controller Monday night and everything is working great. Holding temp steadily and it didn't take much calibrating to match the probe, which is submerged in water in a white labs vial, to the temp of the fermenting wort.

nice build

I know this is bringing back an older thread but it is a perfect example for me. I am getting ready to build a fermentation chamber myself and I was wondering if while using a reptile heat lamp like this one if I would need to put a carboy cover, shirt, or something like that over the fermenting carboy to keep from "skunking" the beer? I didn't know if this type of light would have that affect or not.

I've used my chamber for a few brews now and have not had any issues with the beers being skunked. Those reptile bulbs are infrared and don't put out UVA or UVB spectrums, which would be responsible for skunking.