Fermentation chamber build, with pics

Just buttoning up my fermentation chamber so I can get into brewing lagers. Here's what I needed from it:

- It's in a basement that is not finished nor will it be, so aesthetics were really not that important to me. Purely function.
- I wanted it to be able to hold 3 fermenting vessels and/or cornies.

I got the fridge for free from my parents. I took off the door and framed the chamber





I caulked the hell out of any joints and seems to keep this thing as airtight as possible



Finished building the frame:



then added walls



Here you can see where I mounted my Love controller. It's on the opposite side from the opening of the fridge.



The completed exterior



Once I realized that I would need to be able to heat this thing as well as cool it (and I had already foamed in my single stage Love controller) I realized I would need to modify the wiring. I wired the Love to an outlet instead of to the fridge wiring



The surge protector goes to the wall outlet and the black cord is from the love controller's wiring. I can plug either the fridge or a heater I put inside the chamber into the love controller's outlet and set the love controller to either heating or cooling for desired effect. The white transformer to the right of the surge is for the 2 DC fans I have sitting on top of the cooling plate to circulate air. It can be plugged into the surge protector so those 2 fans are always on.

Here's the heater inside and the DC fans sitting on the cooling plate



The love controller from the inside of the chamber with the temp probe mounted



The floor is a piece of oak panelling cut to fit. I used Dow 3/4" foam board insulation (R5) doubled up to insulate the walls/floor/ceiling/door.

The only thing left to do is remount the door. I need to lift the hinges up off the wall a hair so it clears the weatherstripping and creates a tight seal. I'll be brewing up my first lager tomorrow (Northern Brewer Maibock) so I have some time to get this done.

What do you think?

One more pic of the completed interior. I could only put 10 photos in the original post

Very nice!

I too have a basement space (4.5' crawlspace) that I will be building one of these in. Looks definitely don't matter.

Are you confident in the doubled-up R5 board being enough?

EKennett said:

- I wanted it to be able to hold 3 fermenting vessels and/or cornies.

Click to expand...

Does it really hold three fermenting containers? It looks a tad small for 3.

Yes it can hold three if the third goes half in the fridge.

As far as the R5 board, we shall see. I haven't tested it yet because the door seal is not as "good" as it can be.

Put it on wheels!

How tall is it? With wire shelving you could probably hold 6 fermenters.

that's really cool, i'm looking to do something similar, thanks for the post. i assume it will be able to hold lager fermentation temps?

I havent seen anyone else use the space heater but that was the idea I had. Just didnt know if it was neccessary. Seems alot of guys are building these only to cool but in the pnw we need it to heat as well. Is it working the way you wanted it to? I will pretty much duplicate your build. Do think this would also work in a chest freezer. Would love to see the electrical schematics. Not very good with dc power. Or point me in a good direction. Cheers!