My Mother of Fermentation Chiller (and other Steel Horse Brewery upgrade)

Woo hoo! Finally got 'er done! (well... the thermostat's LCD display didn't work correctly so I had to disconnect it, will get a new one after the holiday)

Before I did another batch I wanted to take care of my ferment temp control issue. I also got a deal on a turkey fryer kit so I can step up to full boils now, as well.

A HUGE thank you to the original plans (www.wortomatic.com) and to my FIL.

Note: I (and the FIL, who is a carpenter by trade) HIGHLY suggest not using 1/4" wood for the skin like previous plans. It is way too thin and is difficult to piece together by just gluing. We used 5/8" and basically built a cabinet shell around the chiller and that worked perfect.... plus it looks a HELLUVA lot better.

Here are the pics:









And my other resent acquisition:



Woo hoo again!

Now THAT is something SHMBO might let me keep out in the open. (Not hid away in a closet.)

Good job!!!

lol that was the whole point of this project..

.. I (and neither did SWMBO) DID NOT want a big pink box sitting around in the house. I want people to come over and just think it's a cabinet.

Thank you!

nice, I wish I had some wood working skills.

This thing is awesome... I'm trying to gather as much info and ideas for a Mother and this will be the inspiration for what I eventually build. Nice work!

I can't seem to find real good step by step instructions for constructing a good one. The Son Of plans are pretty thorough, but the Mother Of plans are so light on content it makes it tough for guys who aren't too handy like me...

Did you just use the pics and description on wort-o-magic or were you able to find some better step by steps, plans, measurements, etc.?

Maybe I should also ask, since you posted this about a year ago.... Hows it holding up and did it improve your final product significantly?

flanken said:

Maybe I should also ask, since you posted this about a year ago.... Hows it holding up and did it improve your final product significantly?

Click to expand...

bump

Snap! Not sure if you're still subscribed to the thread or not but it's holding up great! I haven't used it as much lately because the basement is getting into the mid 60s so I usually just put the carboys down there. The cabinet right now is used for storage. The wood and structure has held up great, even through two moves. It still works like a charm when I do use it. My only complaint is the freezer space the plastic containers take up. I usually have three of them in there at a time so it takes up quite a bit of space.

Oh and YES it did help the final product a ton! I quickly learned how important fermentation temp control is. It drastically improved my beers.

How did you pass the wires through the foamboard? I am making one now and I am at this point. I am hesitant to drill holes, pass wires through, and then reseal with something permanent only because what if I want to change out the wires or add more wires later or any other number of reasons I need to remove/add wires. Maybe I just need to suck it up, cut and glue?

I drilled through the back and used latex caulking to seal it up. I havent needed to change the wires but the caulk should peel off easy enough.

So I built one of these bad boys and generally love it... However I'm finding there's still some significant room for improvement.

My basement (where I store my chamber) is cool, about 65F. So the cooling fan really only comes into play early in the fermentation, to help counter the natural heat the yeast produce as they do their magic.

The rest of the time, the temp drops well below my target...

So I have one of those ceramic enclosed wax-melting lightbulb thingies SWMBO let me steal, and I have it hooked up to my Christmas tree timer... I just haven't been able to get a good on/off pattern identified to hold my target temp. I'm assuming it's because there are way too many variables to account for (ambient temp changes, stage of fermentation, etc) to say 30 mins on, 30 off or 1 hour on, 2 hours off.

So I've been thinking about grabbing one of those InkBird two stage controllers and replacing the thermostat from the original design with it... I'll use it to control the fan blowing air across ice, and the lamp to heat, and tape the temp probe to the outside of my fermenter.

Anyone else having a similar challenge, or can come up with a better solution?

Brian