Work bench / STC-1000 fermentation chamber

Well you guys have inspired me to improve the taste of my beer by taking better control of fermentation temps. My garage is pretty much wall to wall work benches, so to not take up any more room I decided to incorporate a fermentation chamber underneath one of my work benches.

I wanted to keep this project as cheap as possible, so I used an array of scrap wood the sheath the inside of the chamber. Underneath the sheathing is R11 insulation. It's not pretty, but it's doing the job nicely!

I already had a window unit A/C laying around, so the only things I had to buy was the insulation, the STC-1000 temperature controller, and a sheet of plywood for the outside panel and door. For heat I'm using a heat bulb on a keyless socket, so I'm using towels to shield the brew from the light. All said, this little project cost me about $60 in new materials. I still plan to fabricate some type of cover to cover up the exposed wires on the backside of STC-1000, but that can wait a bit for now.

There's room inside for about 6 carboys. Right now I have a couple cases of homebrew bottle conditioning and a carboy fermenting away at a constant 70 degrees. And before anyone comments, yes, I realize that the chamber is not exactly perfectly square..... that's okay... I pride myself on being a half-ass handyman

Sweet!!!

That is excellent use of space. It blends in really well and if I walked into your garage I wouldn't know you had beer fermenting.

How hot do the towels get? You may want to consider something like aluminum foil to sheild the light. It won't start on fire.

The towels haven't really gotten hot. It holds temperature very well, so when the light does come on it's only on for less than a minute before it gets back up to temp.

Nicely done. Where will the condensation from the AC unit go to when it is running?

limulus said:

Nicely done. Where will the condensation from the AC unit go to when it is running?

Click to expand...

That's something I'll have to figure out when it gets warm enough for the A/C to kick on. Right now it's so cold out that the A/C won't be kicking on for a few months or so.

If it becomes an issue I'll just add a drip pan underneath it and funnel out the water to the garage floor.