Air conditioned brew closet experience?

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kindrox

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I am planning out an air conditioned 7' wide, x4' deep x9' high brew closet. I am not sure of the optimum air conditioner to use. Window unit? Portable unit?
 
Portable's can get pricy pretty quick. I'd probably get a window unit with a built in thermostat.
 
The window AC unit is more cost effective. With TX heat you might want to step up to a good efficient unit and not an entry model. Or just stop brewing for 2-3 months every year.
 
I would just recommend getting a cool brewings cooler and use that to keep your beer at proper temperature

Way cheaper than buying and setting up a cooled air conditioned brewing room.
 
I would prefer to put the hot side of a window unit into the room, and not to the outside. I have never used a window unit, will it drip water on the 'outside' side?

But they seem attractive from a size standpoint, as the portables seem very large, and from a cost stand point.

I do want to cool the entire closet so I can control the temp of the bottled beer as well. Being in Texas, we let the house get close to 80 in the summer. The closet will be fairly well insulated.
 
It'll dump all the condensate (water) and waste heat (which is more than it removes) into the other room. Not a good plan.
 
I built a fermentation chest using a $100 window AC unit from Walmart. I have it in my garage where mid-summer temps can get to 120F. The thing has no problem cooling to mid-50s even in that heat. I bought the one with the analog thermostat to save money and it would not cool below 68F because the thermostat would not let it, so I disconnected it and use one of those aquarium temperature controllers. I was afraid of the water condensation issue but it does not drip. I assume this is because the air does not turn over very much in the chest.
 
If you have room for a small 7 cu ft freezer get one. Should cost about $150 new. Only problem is you can't get 6.5 gallon buckets w/airlock into one. I think carboys work, I have usee 5 gallon buckets and can get two inside w/airlocks. But I guess if your gonna have more than one fermenting at a time the closet may be better. Most of the time I use 2 gallon buckets and can have 5 going at once.

After re-reading your OP, you are better off w/the closet much more room than a freezer. Might have to insulate it as well to keep elec. costs down
 
I have a walk-in closet (about 10'x4') that I converted to a fermentation cellar using a portable AC unit. Luckily for me the closet shares a wall with the garage so I run the exhaust duct through to the garage. The nice thing about the portable units is they collect and reuse any condensate, so that's not an issue. I can keep my fermentors in the 60-62deg range easily with the AC unit- upper 50s if I place the carboy directly in front of the unit. I've been really happy with the performance and its great having room for so many temp controlled fermentors... Beats a chest freezer in that respect for sure.
 
Yeah. I know it's made by LG, not sure the model... I'm at work tonight but can check in the morning. I've been really happy with the performance. I think it was like 200 bucks at Home Depot and has been totally worth it.
 
I built a fermentation chest using a $100 window AC unit from Walmart. I have it in my garage where mid-summer temps can get to 120F. The thing has no problem cooling to mid-50s even in that heat. I bought the one with the analog thermostat to save money and it would not cool below 68F because the thermostat would not let it, so I disconnected it and use one of those aquarium temperature controllers. I was afraid of the water condensation issue but it does not drip. I assume this is because the air does not turn over very much in the chest.

I have a very similar setup (ebay aquarium temp controller and all) in my garage and it works great! I have a small space heater in there that runs on the hot side of the controller in the winter too.
 
I am leaning towards a portable unit since the holes to the outside can be smaller. I assume there are two holes, one for air in, one for air out?
 
No, just one hole for hot air out. It's much more efficient to recirculate cold air rather than pull in hot air and make it cold again.
 
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