My New Fermentation coffin!!

Hey all...I decided I wanted to stop making piss poor beers. After a lot of research, equipment upgrades, and staring at the dancing banana for 30 minutes ban I realized that fermentation temp was a huge factor.

So I decided to build a fermentation chamber based off of some designs on here and my space limitations (all-grain brewer in a NYC apt). Let me know what you think! It's just about done, I'm just waiting on the ranco to be delivered in a few days. The lid is exactly the same as the sides/bottom only it will have small holes allowing the airlock to pop out.

Also going to be adding some extra foaming sealant to the corners. Looking forward to hearing what you all think

BTW I am not the craftiest guy ever so be easy and I also realize that the A/C will make the carboy closest to it a little bit cooler. It can hold 4 carboys total and I only intend to do ales. Num Nums

I'd be a little concerned about condensation with this system...

Can you explain why? The temp in the closet hits 80* on very hot days so I don't think it'll be running that much to keep the temp of a carboy around 68* in the fully insulated coffin.

The condensation will form on the AC unit and usually drips off into a yard (when its poking through a window). In your case the AC unit will drip onto your nice hardwood floors. Given the relative humidity in the average house, I expect that this setup would produce quite a bit of water even though it should only be running for a few minutes every hour. Find out where the water drains from on the housing and set a pan under there to catch it. Just remember to dump it every day and you should be ok.

I'd have the sides a bit taller so you don't have to have the airlock poke through the top. I like the size otherwise though. I'm planning on doing something pretty similar in the near future..

Cool, I'll make sure it's leaning slightly back so I can catch any drippage.

BTW I rent so I could care less about the hardwood floors!

Regional Chaos:

Yeah I guess I was so excited to work on this project and get it completed that I didn't size everything with the airlocks attached. Oh well, I'll just make sure the holes in the lid have weather strip to fit snugly around the carboy and I'll make sure the unused holes can be closed and are also weather sealed.

Got everything setup last night with my temp controller and it works great! Did a test run with a carboy filled with water at 75 degrees and it chilled it to 68 in about 45 minutes. I have it setup at a 1 degree differential and it runs maybe once an hour. Following Jamil's advice the probe is insulated and in contact with the carboy half way down the water line.

That's an interesting idea... I'm a brewer in an NYC apt too, and I recently moved into a place w/o central air. Not sure I have the room for a fermentation coffin... anybody got other ideas for keeping fermentation temps down? I usually only brew one batch at a time.

sweetnighter said:

That's an interesting idea... I'm a brewer in an NYC apt too, and I recently moved into a place w/o central air. Not sure I have the room for a fermentation coffin... anybody got other ideas for keeping fermentation temps down? I usually only brew one batch at a time.

Click to expand...

I'm about to build something like this with :
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f51/water-fermentation-chiller-81501/

sweetnighter said:

That's an interesting idea... I'm a brewer in an NYC apt too, and I recently moved into a place w/o central air. Not sure I have the room for a fermentation coffin... anybody got other ideas for keeping fermentation temps down? I usually only brew one batch at a time.

Click to expand...

There is also this - http://www.bayareamashers.org/gadgets/son_of_chiller.pdf