dbarrm
Well-Known Member
Sorry if this has already been said but you need to get some type of fan in there for air movement.
Dan
Dan
My Fermentation Chamber Build
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Ace_Club
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It would all depend on the size of the chamber and the temperature you wanted to keep it at. From my recent experience with this chamber, it holds temps well, but the little fridge struggles to get temps down. Plus, I'm only lowering temps by 10F. You'd most likely have to get a larger mini-fridge or risk burning out the motor.
You'd only need a temp controller if you wanted to accurately control temps.
I know, I'm getting fans this weekend to add into it. However, as it stands, it works very well without the fans.
EarthBound
Well-Known Member
Nice work, Ace! Mine is pretty similar (basically just 2x4's, OSB, and rigid insulation), just a wee bit bigger.
Celsius is way better anyways.Makes life much easier to figure out when water boils at 100 and freezes at 0. Go Metric!! Woot!
yup, cuz trying to remember that 32*F is freezing and 212*F is boiling is pretty hard.
yup, cuz trying to remember that 32*F is freezing and 212*F is boiling is pretty hard.
Yeah. But have you ever had to work with slugs? Imperial units are a pain in the butt.
StittsvilleJames
Well-Known Member
"The metric system is the tool of the devil! My car gets 40 rods to the hogshead and that's the way I likes it."
LOL
Farenheit is dumb.
LOL
Farenheit is dumb.
Mpavlik22
Well-Known Member
StittsvilleJames said:
Too bad it's a very common way to measure temps in the US. We all must be pretty dumb then.
EarthBound
Well-Known Member
Precisely.
Alright, before this goes to far. Back to business
I have a chamber in mind that will basically block off a small part of my laundry room. I will still insulate all of the sides. My laundry room is in my garage and can get up to 100 degrees. I have a chest freezer being delivered and am thinking about using that instead of my mini fridge. Wise?
I have a chamber in mind that will basically block off a small part of my laundry room. I will still insulate all of the sides. My laundry room is in my garage and can get up to 100 degrees. I have a chest freezer being delivered and am thinking about using that instead of my mini fridge. Wise?
Derail! Derail!
Anyway. Insulate and then insulate some more. The temperature differential from 100 to 65 degrees is the same as 70 to 35 degrees. If you can keep the heat out, you should be fine.
Lucky_Chicken
Well-Known Member
Yes... there are all kinds of threads doing that on this site, if your kegerator isn't too big it shouldn't be a problem. I wouldn't technically be a keezer unless you found one of those mini freezers to use which might not be a bad idea for more cooling capacity?
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Ace_Club
Well-Known Member
Brewed recently after a year hiatus and the chamber worked perfectly. That little fridge came back on, no problem, and has been easily keeping the temp between 19 and 19.6 C.
Great build ACE. Thanks for the pics, too. I'm planning to start working on a similar project in my garage this week but will be using a small window A/C unit to chill the chamber. Very clean work in your project. Nice! You've inspired me to get started and take pictures! I always get going on a DIY project and forget to stop and take pics...
jgarretson
Well-Known Member
Hey Ace, I've got a very similar chamber to yours. How are you measuring the temp? I've got the eBay controller and just got a long stainless hollow rod that goes into my airlock and down into the wort where I can install the probe to measure the temp. Haven't used it yet. I previously had a gallon bucket filled with water and the temp probe in that and it seemed to work well on stabilizing the temp so the fridge wasn't constantly cycling.
kenc_zymurgy
Well-Known Member
I'm not Ace, but I will say that there are potential problems with using a probe in the wort.
If you start with wort that is not so close to the desired set temperature, it will take a loooong time to move the temperature of five gallons of wort. Your fridge will run that entire time, but it probably only get so cold after a while. You probably are just over-running the compressor.
Keeping the probe in a small jar of water should be enough to provide reasonable cycle times.
If you want to monitor actual fermentation temps, once the wort has reached desired temperature - then a thermo-well might be the way to go. But I'd set the trip points very close to avoid over-long cycles, and possible overshoot on the cold side. Some people report good luck just taping a probe to the outside of the fermentor, with a bit of insulation.
It's the classic engineering issue - you get an under-damped (responds quicker than the controller can shut it down and it over-shoots), over-damped (responds very slowly), or critically damped system (Goldilocks), depending on those variables.
You don't need to get it exactly right, but steady state, your compressor cycles should be something reasonable, and your air temp shouldn't swing so very far from your desired temp.
-kenc
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Ace_Club
Well-Known Member
Right now I just have the probe hanging in the air.
This might seem like an odd question but whats it like to take the carboys in and out? I thought about walling in my basement workbench and essentially doing the same thing but figured it would be back breaking to have to put the carboys in and out. So currently im upgrading my plastic tub aquarium heater setup to use a chiller. Yeah it's also back breaking to have to lift carboys up and out of the plastic tub, but its inches of movement not a couple feet.
I did use the same temp controller as you though and ill have the heating and cooling plugged in the same way. What im unsure of in that aspect is how to set it to avoid deadlocking where im heating and cooling at the same time.
I did use the same temp controller as you though and ill have the heating and cooling plugged in the same way. What im unsure of in that aspect is how to set it to avoid deadlocking where im heating and cooling at the same time.
jgarretson
Well-Known Member
I use plastic buckets and it's not too difficult to get a full fermenter in or out.
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Ace_Club
Well-Known Member
Carboys and buckets are no problem at all. The plastic I put down on the floor is very slick. Basically, I use a carboy harness to lift the carboy a few inches and set it on the floor of the ferm chamber. Then I remove the harness and slide the carboy into place.
As for the controller, the F1 setting is the temperature setpoint and the F2 setting is the temp difference setting. Cooling should kick on when the temp in the chamber is >F1+F2 and heating should kick on when the temp in the chamber is <F1-F2. Both heating and cooling will shut off when the F1 setpoint is reached. Make sense?
jgarretson
Well-Known Member
So I'm moving my ferm chamber to the basement to help regulate the temps even more and in the process I got to thinking about "prettying" up the outer cabinet. This of course means stickers and a giant painted logo of my home brewery but has anyone ever painted a big chalkboard area on their ferm chamber to keep notes or whatever? Sound like it's be useful?
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Ace_Club
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I know I've seen lots of kegerators that have used the chalkboard paint idea, so I don't see why it wouldn't work for a fermentation chamber.
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