Building Dual Stage Fermentation Chamber - Need help getting power inside.

I have a used Frigidaire Chest Freezer FFC0723GB5 aprox 25 Gallons which will fit both my 5G buckets with a little room to spare. I want to use it as a fermentation chamber with both heating and cooling capabilities.

I am planning on buying the STC 1000 temperature controller for both activating the freezer as well as activating a ferm heat wrapper warmer on the warming side. http://morebeer.com/products/fermwraptm-heater.html

How do I get my temperature probe as well as the power for the fermwrap inside the freezer? I don't want to drill holes if it will destroy my freezer and I don't know if feeding it through the back won't pinch my cables and/or cause excessive condensation due to opening.

Also been reading Amazon reviews of the ferm wraps and some are saying soldering comes loose meaning there's dangling 120VAC in a moist environment with no grounding. Not good. So safety is a concern as well.

Thanks for any help you can provide.

If you don't want to drill a hole, and you don't care about having the interior light, you can repurpose the lamp wires to power the fermwrap (but check their amp ratings against the current that the Fermwrap draws). That doesn't solve the temp probe problem, but you could feed that through the lid gasket, cutting a tiny slit and sealing it back over with rubber cement, if you don't want to drill anything. It would be ugly, but there are worse things than being ugly.

Drilling a hole isn't a big deal, though. I don't think any freezer bodies have evaporator coils on all five sides, so you just need to find the side without the coil and drill there. Spray-foam insulation can seal the holes right back up to avoid condensation.

If you're worried about a short, you can put an inline GFCI on the Fermwrap. If it's going out in your garage or unfinished basement, most building codes already call for GFCIs on those sockets anyway, so you would already be protected. If the socket that you're going to use has those little reset and test buttons on it, then you're good to go!

This post was heroic. Thank you !

Maybe I can drill through the back of the lid maybe.

Thanks for the help.

I recommend reptile enclosure heat tape. it's sold by the foot. check out Huaco's ferm build for more info. Can't link from my phone, but if you search the DIY section you'll find it. 4 feet hold 10 gal at about a 25 degree differential with no issues.

PDX_T said:

... check out Huaco's ferm build for more info...

Click to expand...

big thumbs up on that. I took inspiration from his build and use two controllers and two reptile heat tapes to control two carboys at different temps (when necessary). I throw a blanket around the warmer one, elevate it with a foam pad and can keep a 35*F temp difference on 4 gallons. So basically, I set the one controller/carboy combination to the lower temp and use the 2nd controller and tape to keep the other carboy at its warmer temp. I use the carboy bung thermowell--I think from Morebeer.

I just close the lid on the cords and temp probes--the lid is padded and I don't notice too much condensation. The reptile basics heat tapes are riveted and then taped up with this real gummy stuff--I don't see it coming undone but plan on adding a fuse to my control box.

Thanks guys for all the help.

I did check out Huaco's post here:
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f51/3-temp-fermentation-controller-1-chamber-388549/

My concern is to do as safe as I can. It doesn't look like this heat tape is grounded. Since I will be doing both heating and cooling and condensation could form wouldn't this be a problem?

thx.

Thinking of a bucket heater but not sure how effective for my space.

http://www.valleyvet.com/ct_detail....=34501211923&gclid=CNmAm-zEirkCFcyY4AoduyMA6Q

It's not grounded because there isn't any conductive part of the device that needs to be grounded. Grounding an appliance insures that any conductive element not designed to carry current (e.g. a metal chassis) can't come in contact with a hot wire and therefore itself become hot. The only conductive parts of the heating strip are the heating elements themselves, so the only thing that could possibly carry current within the device is already carrying current under normal operation.

If the device's bare wires become exposed and condensation somehow shorts it out, the fuse in the temp controller unit will blow, so you're OK there. This is very unlikely, though, as condensate water is strongly deionized, and water is only conductive when it contains dissolved salts. The materials you're putting the coil on are insulators (plastic, glass) so there's no chance that they could become hot from touching a bare wire.

If the hot wire became exposed and you touched it while grabbing a nail in the ground, the GFCI would catch it. If you were to touch both wires simultaneously, you'd end up with a burn on your finger, but no risk to life or limb, as the current would just be passing through the tiny bit of skin between the two wires.

All these scenarios are very improbable, though. You'd do more to avoid electrocution by avoiding brewing under power lines

Edit: Just to be clear, you'll be safe if the whole shebang is on a GFCI, less so if you're not. Even without the GFCI, though, the risk is pretty minimal IMO, but an electrician should pipe up if I'm being cavalier.

Guys this has all been really helpful.

I wish there's something I could do to return the favor but as of right now you can see I'm a novice brewer.

If you need some coding advice, help with your physics homework or an intro to microeconomics I could help you I guess.

skokott said:

Guys this has all been really helpful.

I wish there's something I could do to return the favor but as of right now you can see I'm a novice brewer.

If you need some coding advice, help with your physics homework or an intro to microeconomics I could help you I guess.

Click to expand...

Keep learning and enjoy brewing. That's what we're all here for!

Okay, here goes:

(if) F grav = m*g

Does F grav= G+M earth *m/ d2 (squared)

Is this correct?

Get rid of the plus sign and at macroscopic scales in the whole Newtonian world you're just fine.

By the way if you want to see something really beautiful check out Lagrangian classical mechanics. It's old but really cool. It shows the particle follows the path that's minimized by some calculus. If you think that's not tremendously cool remember your office mates don't understand why we make beer when we can just buy it at the store