Walk in cooler

I have a 12x16 brewery. I would like a 4x6 cooler in It. I would use my current window a/c unit for the cooler like Deep Six Brewing. My question is do you think I could put a vent in the cooler wall to lower the brewery temp and be able to maintain steady ale fermentation temps.

jyorger said:

I have a 12x16 brewery. I would like a 4x6 cooler in It. I would use my current window a/c unit for the cooler like Deep Six Brewing. My question is do you think I could put a vent in the cooler wall to lower the brewery temp and be able to maintain steady ale fermentation temps.

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Sorry, old guys get confused easily. I have two 4x6 coolers for lager fermentation and lagering. My confusion is about your reference to a vent. My coolers have no vents, in fact are sealed up tight. If what you are wanting to do is control temps for ales, you won't even need a temp controller as most AC units will go down to 55 f*. At least that has been my experience with Frigidaire AC. Good luck with your project...

jyorger said:

I have a 12x16 brewery. I would like a 4x6 cooler in It. I would use my current window a/c unit for the cooler like Deep Six Brewing. My question is do you think I could put a vent in the cooler wall to lower the brewery temp and be able to maintain steady ale fermentation temps.

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I think it depends on a lot of factors... where you live, what the outside temps are year round etc...

It would be very hard to regulate both zones to the temperatures you are looking for, since air will be flowing through your vent, and continue running until the entire area is close to the lowest zone temp... You could play with the system and most likely make it work by putting the external temp gauge closer to the AC unit, etc... but it would be much easier, and lot less time consuming to just get small AC unit off CL, and use it for the cooler, as 4x6 is not that much room to cool!

I think I've always known I need 2 a/c's. I was just hoping for a miracle idea. My fear is that I cannot support 2 units and everything else on a 60 amp breaker in Florida.

jyorger said:

I think I've always known I need 2 a/c's. I was just hoping for a miracle idea. My fear is that I cannot support 2 units and everything else on a 60 amp breaker in Florida.

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What else do you have tied into the 60A breaker?

Even in FLA, if you build your cold room well the AC unit inside the cold room won;t be running all the time... and even when it does it won't be running full power I would imagine, unless you have a bad seal to the room, or are opening the door a ton!... place a temp controller and give it a +/- of a few degrees from your perfect temp, so its not always attempting to keep a super tight tolerance there.

Same idea with the 2nd ac unit to cool the overall room give it a tolerance, so its not running all the time trying to get to an exact temp...

It's worth a try. I would love a small walk in cooler. My brewery is all electric so I pull a lot of amps. Though I am currently running a deep freezer and the room a/c. I will compare the deep freezer amps to another window unit in a walk in.

Maybe you could hook up an electric vent fan to a thermostat or temp controller that will kick on when the outside room needs to be cooled and when its off would have some kind of closed flap or doors.

I'm sure there's some kind of exhaust fan with electric slats that would stay closed when off. Or to do it on the cheap you could use some other type of fan with a some type of light rubber or metal flap that would be flipped open by the air from the fan.

I like the plan. Thank you.