Fermentation Chamber Build

This is my 2nd ever build for brewing. I made a immersion wort chiller about a month ago. I didn't really have a budget because building something is just more fun and more rewarding than buying it.

I found a mini fridge in the back room of my dad's house, so I gutted that and bought some wire shelves from Home Depot for 20$ and built around it.



Using a utility knife I started cutting the foam board and building around the shelves.


Finally finished building around the shelves, leaving the top and the door off.


Using some insulation tape, I tapped all the coils to the foam board.


Yesterday, I picked up all the materials to finish the build from Home Depot. I had to go back later in the day to get different hinges because the ones I purchased were too small.


I sanded all the wood with medium grit and then used a fine grit to prep it for some wood stain.
I tried using Liquid Nails to attach the wood to the foam board, but the coils created too much separation and the caulking did nothing at all. I brainstormed for a little and decided to use little squares of plywood and drilled with a drill bit all the way through the plywood then foam board and into the plywood square and then drilled in a screw and the wood held perfect after that.


In about an hour I'm going to finish wood staining everything and the gaps between the wood, I used the Great Stuff foam sealant to close them and let it dry over night, and I will take a utility knife and cut it make it look like its a clean finish and sand it down with medium grit and fine grit.


Today the project should be finished, If i don't run into any problems. I have to put the hinges on the door, add the magnet door stop, and door handle. Finished pictures hopefully to come soon because I have to let my friend take it up in his car back to Savannah, because it wont fit in my tiny c230

Can you get two carboys in there?

I haven't tested it with two glass carboys, but it can fit two of these 5 gal plastic pnes

Very nice, making stuff is always more rewarding. Wouldn't it be better if the coils where taped onto the inside surface of the insulation? Let us know how it works for you.

Brew on,

Keyth

KeythL said:

Wouldn't it be better if the coils where taped onto the inside surface of the insulation?

Click to expand...

Those coils that are on the side give off heat, while the thing that gets cold, the white metal plate he has inside the frame.

edit:
Reread and do not know if those are cooling or heat dissipating coils. Cooling would need to be inside the insulation. Heat dissipating should be open to air circulation. Outside the plywood. Either way, it looks to me like a serious rework will be needed!

You may not run into a problem due to the smaller space, but the foam that you used as well as the plywood doesn't have a very high R-Value (How well it insulates). So depending on how much of a differential you want inside, your compressor may be running overtime to compensate.

I just built one similar to this and I used 2" EPS. From the pictures it appears that you are using 1/2"?

wfowlks said:

You may not run into a problem due to the smaller space, but the foam that you used as well as the plywood doesn't have a very high R-Value (How well it insulates). So depending on how much of a differential you want inside, your compressor may be running overtime to compensate.

I just built one similar to this and I used 2" EPS. From the pictures it appears that you are using 1/2"?

Click to expand...

I followed your build up until the point I put the wood on. Yeah they only had 1/2 at home depot :/

The cool thing about EPS is that you can stack it and the R-Values add together. So 4 layers of 1/2" is equivalent to 2" of 1 layer. So if you find that you are not able to get the temp ranges inside the chamber you want, I would just slap some more insulation on the sides. Toothpicks do a great job of holding things in place till the liquid nails settles.

wfowlks said:

The cool thing about EPS is that you can stack it and the R-Values add together. So 4 layers of 1/2" is equivalent to 2" of 1 layer. So if you find that you are not able to get the temp ranges inside the chamber you want, I would just slap some more insulation on the sides. Toothpicks do a great job of holding things in place till the liquid nails settles.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the info. If it doesnt work the way I want it to then I'll definitely use that method. I'm still only on extract kits right now.

Are you going to rest the rack directly onto the foam board? If you had two full glass carboys on the rack, I feel the rack will push into the foam board. You need to have some sort of board to distribute the weight of the rack and carboys if you want the foam board to hold up for a while.

wfowlks said:

Those coils that are on the side give off heat, while the thing that gets cold, the white metal plate he has inside the frame.

Click to expand...

Ah, I don't think so, the white plate is definitely part of the cooling (freezing actually) side, but so are those coils. the heat exchanger is part of the condenser assembly shown once in the rectangular foam block.

Keyth

To the OP:

Were the coils that you taped to the outside of the insulation originally on the inside or the outside of the minifridge.

Either way you should move them to the inside of the foam insulation or the outside of the plywood if you want the cooling to work as intended.

KeythL said:

Ah, I don't think so, the white plate is definitely part of the cooling (freezing actually) side, but so are those coils. the heat exchanger is part of the condenser assembly shown once in the rectangular foam block.

Keyth

Click to expand...

In modern mini fridges, they use the freezer compartment to cool the whole fridge. The coils that were attached to the side are for heat exchange with the outside air and they are fine under the plywood because it does not have a high r value