Fermentation Chamber - Freezer Chest or Upright Fridge?

Being new to the brewing game and living in GA, I'm quickly finding that maintaining steady fermenting temps in the summer is not easy and has, I believe, created some off flavors in my beer.
In an effort to create the ideal temps for fermenting my primaries and secondaries, I'm hoping to get some opinions about what others' prefer in terms of a fermenting chamber. I know everyone has a different opinion on this, which is why I'm asking. Some of my concerns are:

-Cost (am looking to buy used and retrofit it with a temp. controller)
-Capacity (I want to fit at least 2- 6.5 gal. carboys or ale pales)
-Energy Consumption (For financial and environmental reasons)
-Space (I don't have a lot of room - enough for a fridge or 7cu/ft chest freezer)

Another consideration, sliding five gallons into a refrigerator is usually a little easier on the back then having to drop it in and out of a freezer.

I just finished getting all the equipment I needed this week, and plan to brew my first batch this weekend, so I don't have a deep history you can benefit from but I recently made the decision myself. For me the main deciding factor was the footprint - I could either have a large upright freezer or a smaller chest freezer due to where it would have to go. I opted to go bigger and have a 17 cubic foot upright and am happy with the decision. (and I didn't consider a fridge because I wanted to be able to lager).

Other things considered:
* You're going to dump less cold air out with a chest freezer. I still felt the 5 gallon mass wouldn't be impacted that easily from infrequently opening the freezer.
* I think you'll have a much easier time loading/unloading fermenters in an upright
* If you think you may keg and convert to a keezer you may prefer the chest.
* It seems chests were everywhere on Craigslist but uprights (at the price I wanted to pay) were a little harder to find. With a little patience though the right upright can be found for the right price.

If you are only making ales and not lagers, I found that the swamp cooler method was very inexpensive and effective.

dancness said:

If you are only making ales and not lagers, I found that the swamp cooler method was very inexpensive and effective.

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Only Ales at this point. The problem I have with the swamp cooler is my schedule...can't always be around to drop in ice or frozen H2o bottles. I want to be able to put in a freezer or fridge and leave it alone for 3-4 weeks. On my first beer, I kept a damp t-shirt over the bucket and placed it in front of an AC register. It worked, but the temps fluctuated quite a bit due to the AC turning on and off. Also, the ambient temp. of my house during the summer is around 76-78 deg...too warm to just stick in a closet.

Got a wine cooler that goes to the low 50's and a temp control. I love it only fits one carboy though

If you plan on only doing ales and never brewing a lager then i would say a fridge. With a fridge you can easily maintain ale temps for fermentation. If at any point you might brew lagers then I would suggest a chest freezer, you have the ability to ferment a lager at the optimal fermentation temps with a fridge or freezer but if you are going to lager the fridge might not be able to drop the temps to the proper lagering temps. I like to lager at 31F and the only thing that will go that low is the freezer.

HopKeller said:

Only Ales at this point. The problem I have with the swamp cooler is my schedule...can't always be around to drop in ice or frozen H2o bottles. I want to be able to put in a freezer or fridge and leave it alone for 3-4 weeks. On my first beer, I kept a damp t-shirt over the bucket and placed it in front of an AC register. It worked, but the temps fluctuated quite a bit due to the AC turning on and off. Also, the ambient temp. of my house during the summer is around 76-78 deg...too warm to just stick in a closet.

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I see. My house was 76F and I didn't have much problems keeping the cooler at 66F. I just had to drop in ice bottles twice a day and keep the fan on it around the clock. If you want a hands free system, obviously the swamp cooler won't allow that. But it sure is cheap.

I too live in Georgia. And I got a GE 7.0 cubic foot chest freezer earlier this summer. It fits 2 6-gallon better bottles with enough room on the hump for a 4lb bucket of damp rid. It gets humid at crap here in GA and when opening and closing this in my garage I find some of that gets trapped, not much. I don't plan on having to change the bucket for many months.

I bought mine new since i couldnt find any on craigslist. It was 298 plus tax at SAMs club. I use a johnson digital temp controller and it's been great. Any of the new chest freezers will cost very very little in terms of energy usage. They say about 30 dollars a year to run it as an actual freezer and I'm using it for 66F. Just make sure to up the delay on the temp controller so it wont kick the compressor on and off a lot.

Chest freezer hands down. You'll eventually want to cold crash also, so this works great. Mine is very efficient in my 110 degree garage.

If you insulate the probe against the side of the fermentor (which you really should do, since you're trying to control fermentation temp, NOT ambient) you shouldn't have any issues with the compressor kicking in too often. But that's really just all the more reason to set the delay nice and high, just in case.

I had the same problems with humidity (80%+ is typical in the summer here), and it caused a TON of condensation in my freezer. The walls would be soaked, and the floor would have like an inch of water. Damp rid only helped a little bit. I put a fan in there, figuring Damp Rid can only dehumidify the air that actually moves across it. Mounted perpendicular to the front, level with the bottom, and it didn't help a whole lot.

So I figured the "neatness" of the airflow was the problem. If the fan was shooting bouncy balls, for instance, it would bounce right back at the fan instead of moving around all over. So I set it up on in the bottom-front corner and aimed the flow roughly (but not perfectly) in the direction of the opposite top-back corner, and surprisingly it somehow made a huge difference. My freezer is dry as a bone now.

This is an old thread but I thought I'd clarify something. The thread makes it sound like you can't use a regular fridge to lager. This is absolutely untrue. Most fridges get plenty cold enough to lager or cold crash and some will freeze if you turn up the setting. Bottom line - you don't need to use a freezer to cold crash or lager, a fridge will work just fine.

Chest Freezer, because you can fit more than one carboy, and don't need to enforce the base. Not that a fridge would not work fine.

I'll add also that a chest freezer. You don't have to pull the fermenters out to do a hydrometer test.

The winner? Whatever you can get on the cheap!

Like you I am in the SE (N. FL). Shop around and also look on fleabay for used restaurant equipment that can be found cheap. I just got a True TUC-48 undercounter refrigerator for $1.00 on Fleabay. The poversized (134A) refrigeration system can hold temps between 33-38 F out of the box. Will get a controller so I can raise temps.