Exhaust?

You may have issues with negative pressures on the chimney that's exhausting hot water/furnace. It may pull air from the chimney with it the fumes your exhausting.

Decided to switch the location of the brew rig and pulled the trigger on the active air 6 inch fan with speed control from amazon. Can't wait to get it

Just got my fan in the mail. Now I'm looking to pick up a storage container to use as a hood. Anybody have any opinions as far as possibly painting a storage container?

Good purchase! They are great fans.

I went with a range hood, works OK, but could be better. Before the range hood I would have water dripping off the ceiling joists after a brew. Now I don't have that but it doesn't get every bit of steam.

If I had the extra money I'd go for the hood and a vortex style fan. But here is what I got for free (2 range hoods on craigslist for $60, resold 1 for $60, so free for me)

I'm just wrapping up my vent hood and duct. For now, I'm sharing the dryer vent and using quick disconnects for both the dryer duct and the semi-rigid 4" duct that comes off of a 6-4 reducer from the 6" Active Air fan. I built the hood out of 1x2s and 1/2" foil-coated foam insulation board and silicone caulked the inside seams. Hopefully, I can get everything connected tonight and a boil test tonight or tomorrow. The only problem I ran into is that somehow I ended up with a crimped duct end trying to connect to the male end of the fan.

I just set up a box fan nearby blowing over the top of my HLT and BK. Works like a damn charm.

Durhamite said:

I just set up a box fan nearby blowing over the top of my HLT and BK. Works like a damn charm.

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Dang - no wow factor in that though.

Durhamite said:

I just set up a box fan nearby blowing over the top of my HLT and BK. Works like a damn charm.

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are you actually using this box fan to exhaust the humidity out of your house or just blowing it around your room? this water will build up and eventually cause damage to your property. You really need to exhaust that water out of your house.

With water, just because you don't see it doesn't mean it is not there.

As cool as the hoods are, they are not necessary in my book. This works great for me. No condensation at all. The active air fan is 720CFM, probably overkill but it was like $10 more than the 400CFM one. I think I paid like $80 or so for it, though I'm probably on a watch list now as I bought it from an online store that had nothing but grow lights, etc. for weed.

Hoods = cool. Necessary?

Hooked the ducts up tonight and turned the fan on during an 8 gallon boil test. Good news is that on high the fan moves some air. There was a little steam escaping from the hood here and there, but nothing significant.

The bad news was that I had serious condensation at the fan and it was leaking from fan exit and fan housing. Back to the drawing board.

How many CFM is your fan?

How long is the piping run and how large is your opening?

conpewter said:

I went with a range hood, works OK, but could be better. Before the range hood I would have water dripping off the ceiling joists after a brew. Now I don't have that but it doesn't get every bit of steam.

If I had the extra money I'd go for the hood and a vortex style fan. But here is what I got for free (2 range hoods on craigslist for $60, resold 1 for $60, so free for me)

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Glad to hear that this works relatively well. I have been wanting to pull the trigger on craiglist for one of these range hoods but I wasnt sure it would be enough. I brew in the garage and mostly just need to get the majority of moisture out, not all of it. Big thing for me will be keeping the smell down inside the house that seemed to permeate the walls/floors, I havent trained SWMBO to like that smell yet.

I should be able to find one that fits well, mounted to the shelf above my BK (its the one on the right in this pic). I have a window that I can rig up a piece of insulation with a hole in it for the exhaust ducting.

Dgonza9 said:

How many CFM is your fan?

How long is the piping run and how large is your opening?

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Its the 6" active air. There's 5' of 6" duct / fan / reducer / 6' of 4" semi-rigid flex in a gentle curve to a 4" dryer vent. I'm thinking of putting more 6" duct after the fan.

Is your duct to the fan pitched so you can maybe put a drain in the bottom? Maybe insulation will help? I'm working on a system for my setup too and it's yet to be tested but condensation is something I will probably need to address.

Junkster said:

Is your duct to the fan pitched so you can maybe put a drain in the bottom? Maybe insulation will help? I'm working on a system for my setup too and it's yet to be tested but condensation is something I will probably need to address.

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Yeah I've been thinking about that too. I think its probably better to have the fan as far upstream (close to the hood) so that condensation is less likely to collect there. Then you will need some sort of drain or pitch on the rest of the vent so that the condensation will drip out somewhere.

Fly_Rodder said:

Hooked the ducts up tonight and turned the fan on during an 8 gallon boil test. Good news is that on high the fan moves some air. There was a little steam escaping from the hood here and there, but nothing significant.

The bad news was that I had serious condensation at the fan and it was leaking from fan exit and fan housing. Back to the drawing board.

Click to expand...

What is your hood made out of? It appears like there is a slight upward pitch from your hood to your fan. Maybe that's causing the condensation

I went down to the recycling center and found an old SS gas grill cover and used that as a hood
mounted the in line fan directly to the cover and vented out the cellar window

I mounted it on the wall using adjustable shelfing brackets so I can move it up and down as needed

Works great and looks pretty good

I built a hood using 1" thick, 4'x8' sheet of foam insulation I picked up from a big box store. I glued it together with the appropriate foam panel glue and some 3" deck screws to secure it.

Very light weight, easy to hang, and resistant to mold growth. I used a 6" inline fan off eBay, Tjernlund brand, with a speed controller. Not sure the exact CFM, I'm guessing about 500.

Recently I found a heat vent hood used for commercial dishwashers on a repo website. I replaced the blue foam with shiny stainless steel, and it works great.

I did some modifications today, leveled & re-ran the duct, re-hung the fan and hood, too. I haven't finished the run yet and when I do I'll test again. One if the things I've found with the active air fan is that, at least mine, when it's mounted to hang from the ceiling based on the directions, the electric power in is at the bottom. And that's not going to work long if there's any condensation accumulating in the fan body and dripping down. So I modded the mounting brackets a bit and the electric pack is on top. I'm also running 2' of duct between the fan and the reducer & right angle.

1200cfm fan, 10" make up air on bottom left of stand. I only run it on about 1/4 speed. It's super quite and you could never tell I was brewing, no smell/condensation whatsoever.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B002JQ14F8/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20

Is this the active air that I see some of you going with?

dburgette said:

http://www.amazon.com/Hydrofarm-Active-Air-inch-In-Line/dp/B002JQ14F8/ref=sr_1_1?s=lawn-garden&ie=UTF8&qid=1338756312&sr=1-1

Is this the active air that I see some of you going with?

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That's the one I got

I got the 8" and it's more than enough

I just rigged this cheapo exhaust up for my garage e-brewery. It’s a bathroom exhaust (I’d estimate at about 80 cfm based on experience with other exhaust fans) that I bought at a construction reuse place for 3 bucks. All other materials were acquired in either my dad’s or my garage – he bended some scrap sheet metal for a ‘hood’, the flexible ducting is run to a panel of insulation fit into the window about 3 feet away from the kettle, and electric cord is an old extension cord.

Havent done a full brew day on it but I tested it by boiling about 3 gallons of water – it didn’t pull out all the steam right away but it was definitely a whole lot better than nothing! And after running it for about 30 minutes post boil I didn’t detect any excess humidity in the garage.

bullywee said:

I got the 8" and it's more than enough

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Me too.

Just figured I'd subscribe and show some mockup photos of my ActiveAir 6"---also seeking some feedback.



I need to be able to break mine down and stow it away, I may go with sch 40 for the elbow and long run instead. But since my keg holes are around 11.5", I picked up a 12"x6" reducer at the local HVAC supply and will probably suspend it few inches above the opening. My plan is to plumb it so that condensation goes toward the fan and will install a small vinyl hose to channel condensation to the sink. I may also drill small weep holes in the AA case as well at the lowest point.

If you put the fan directly over the source with too little fresh air to dilute the saturated air from the boil, condensation will form. I was thinking if I can suck more fresh air into the stream--and the air/boiloff mixture at the fan is below the 95% rh recommended by the manufacturer--the fan should be able to eliminate it without much condensation. Flex duct hose, semi rigid, elbows, etc--are all places to collect. Which is why I abandoned this idea as soon as I took the photo.



Won't be able to do a boil/condensation test for a few days.

I placed the 6x12" duct reducer offset a bit, just sitting on the top rim of the keg and it works quite well. Been boiling water for about 2 hrs and no sweaty walls! There's no condensation whatsoever and the temp inside of the duct at full boil is only 76 degrees (fan off, it went to 100).

I drilled a small weep hole with a 3/32" bit at the lowest point of the AA housing and nothing comes out of it at all. Just have to hang it a bit higher...Success!

EDIT: I never realized how suspicious looking a bright GREEN grow fan would look until it was in my window! Luckily, I'll only be using it a few hours each week...and it's not illegal to grow beer in NJ.