Chest freezer for for fermentation

Hi all,

I just picked up a nice 7 CF frigidare chest freezer off Craigslist. I intend to use it to put my fermentation buckets in. it fits 2 nicely. I also have a Ranco digital temp controler rigged up.I'm mainly interested in brewing Ale's and Wheat beers. I haven't found many posts on using this for fermenting, mostly keezer conversion . any tips or advice is appreciated.

It should work great. If you have a two-stage controller, you can set it up for both cooling and heating, and really tune your fermentation temps to the specific batch (e.g., low range for the yeast for a "clean" beer like a Kolsch, or ramping up to high temps for a Saison).

You will need to figure out the range to set for hysteresis (people usually use 3-5F), so that the freezer compressor does not cycle on and off too frequently.

The biggest point of debate is where to put the temperature probe. Some just hang it in the freezer, some tape it to the outside of the fermentor with insulation on the outside of it, some put it in liquid or gel packs, and some even build a thermowell and put it into the fermentor.

Another thing to consider is dampness. A bucket of DampRid can help quite a bit. A fan running 24 hours can equalize the temp throughout the freezer.

That's the synopsis....

I have a 8.8CF chest freezer I use as a fermentation chamber. I did a DIY temp. controller, but same idea. That's all I've done, no other modifications.

Let's see, advice:

Play around with where you measure the temperature in your freezer to find the best place to have your probe. Do a search, there are a lot of threads dealing with this. I'm a believer in just measuring the air temperature, but other people like to measure from the fermenter, etc.

I need to use Damprid to deal with some minor condensation issues.

Just make sure you keep it clean, it's easy to spill some drops here and there taking samples, and that can get nasty quick.

Edit : jeffmeh beat me to the punch!