Thinking about portioning part of my ferm chamber for a cheese cave, read below

I'm buildng an under the bench ferm/lagering chamber under a new brew bench. My plan is to seal off a section with a separate entrance. For temperature, my plan is to use a temp sensor that can turn on a pc fan to pull cool air from the ferm chamber into the cheese cave.

My concern is could I possibly be introducing yeasties from active fermentations either by blowoff or airlock? Or does this seem feasible.

I appreciate your thoughts since I'm ordering materials this week.

Thanks

Flananuts

I honestly don't know. I'd be more concerned with lacto going from the cheese cave out to the beer, though.

I don't know if it would be a problem either, but I suspect it is not. Just keep the airlock on. If you are worried you could do a glycerol cooling setup. That way you wouldn't be pumping the air around and around.

my thought is to just fab a one way fan flap like on exhaust/vent fans when the temp controller says to cool it down. With all the outward co2 pressure I can't imagine I would have too much of a problem. I' think I'm going to go for it. I'll have to research the glycerol setup some and see if I want to go that route.

Thanks

Bumped the thread with an idea. What if I just used the mini fridge approach for the ferm/lagering cabinet and set up a separate closed sump/pump of propylene glycol that then runs to a copper coils wrapping the exterior walls of my "cheese cave portion". I could then just have the second temp controller kick the pump on when needed and take an air reading via std thermostat. This would be the closest to guaranteeing no lacto transfer to my beautiful beer.

That's kind of what I was after. I must have had the wrong chem name.

flananuts said:

Bumped the thread with an idea. What if I just used the mini fridge approach for the ferm/lagering cabinet and set up a separate closed sump/pump of propylene glycol that then runs to a copper coils wrapping the exterior walls of my "cheese cave portion". I could then just have the second temp controller kick the pump on when needed and take an air reading via std thermostat. This would be the closest to guaranteeing no lacto transfer to my beautiful beer.

Click to expand...

If your beer is in a primary or secondary, you will most likely have an airlock on it right? I would suspect that no lacto transfer would make it into your beer if that was the case. Now gas from the beer may cause problems with the cheese, but I would think in most cases the rind will protect the cheese from any nasties. In the event you did develop any growth, you could use a mild solution to wipe the rind down and remove any potential problems.

I am using my Fermentation Chamber as a Cheese Cave and have not as yet experienced any problems. Please note that I am very new to cheese making and have only a few cheese wheels in the cave right now. I also vacuum seal my cheese after drying for a few days.

Salute!