My mother/son of fermentation build.

So I had originally decided to use a fridge I had gotten for free for my chamber, but it worked fine so I use that fridge for all my beer. This build was a two week process with some of the ideas being used from both builds. Basically used wiring from son build with size of mother build. Don't know if my phone will let me post pictures if not I'll post them later. I finished mine with some nice red oak and oak trim. Also used plywood as my frame instead of just the insulation. Cost me more than I would've liked, but it was alot of fun regardless and I'm fairly pleased with the results considering I have no woodworking skills or wiring skills.

Picture of the kegorator that I just finished as well.

Actually thought this would get some more attention than it has?

Yesterday was International Beer Day... People are still a little slow today trying to recover.
I dig it! Looks a lot like the one I built except you spent more time trimming up the outside.
I was just recently was forced to convert to a chest freezer for my fermentation though, and built one of those eBay controllers to control it.

Do you intend to heat this thing at some point? You could use your thermostat with a relay to turn on a small ceramic reptile heater or something similar if you did. Worked well for me.

krazydave said:

Yesterday was International Beer Day... People are still a little slow today trying to recover.
I dig it! Looks a lot like the one I built except you spent more time trimming up the outside.
I was just recently was forced to convert to a chest freezer for my fermentation though, and built one of those eBay controllers to control it.

Do you intend to heat this thing at some point? You could use your thermostat with a relay to turn on a small ceramic reptile heater or something similar if you did. Worked well for me.

Click to expand...

Was wondering about that. Could I just wire it into the thermostat and 12V adapter? My basement never gets colder than 68 degrees though so I don't know if it's much of a worry?

The relay would have to be tripped by your 12v adapter going through your existing thermostat. But if your basement stays at 68, I don't think you'll even need heat.
I live in So Cal and ferment in my garage, so I have a much wider temp variance.
In the winter time, my chamber would drop quite cold during the night. It was pretty quick that I realized that I'll need some sort of heater.

Last winter I feremented without a chamber and seemed to do okay. The temperature got too warm if anything due to the activity in the ferementer. Something like 74 to 76 if I remember correctly? Beer turned out okay, but I think if I can keep the temp down and consistent it'll be much better.

I actually had a problem with my chamber getting too cold when it wasn't hot outside. With the fan off, having even two blocks of ice in there would still cool the whole chamber down. So I'd suggest keeping a close eye on it when you first use it.

Funny thing is I've been doing this the past two days with no ice in it.................electric thermometer has read 68.4 for the past 3 days. PERFECT! I built a box that doesn't need any ice or air movement to reach my temperature. lol Granted I know the wort will be warmer than that so I'll need to pay attention to that more than anything else.