Freezer as fermentation chamber

All,

I just purchased a new Holiday freezer from Lowe's yesterday and I was going to use it as a fermentation chamber only. I don't lager, and I'll only be using it for ales. I bought a Johnson control a couple of weeks ago and I'm ready to get this thing started, but I've been reading a couple of horror stories about using a freezer for a fermentation chamber. I was going to install the probe to test temperature through the drain hole (hopefully), but if that didn't work, I was going to drill through the lid and place the probe through that hole. Before I started drilling anything though, I wanted to make sure that you guys think this freezer would work for me. I'm going to install a pc fan inside as well.

A side question would be do I let the probe dangle in the freezer, or do I stabilize it with something like duct tape against the wall or some other method?

Thanks!

Tape it to the fermenter. Also you will want a fan of some sort to draw the (very) cold air up from the bottom of the freezer and circulate it to maintain a consistent temp. I used a PC fan, a 6V mobile phone wall wart, and a section of flexible dryer duct from Lowes. Bend a short "L" in the duct, stand it up in the deepest part of the freezer and duct tape the fan to the top. Shazaam! Consistent temps for pennies a month. It's the best thing you can do for your brewing, in my opinion.

How many fermenters are you going to place inside the freezer at one time? Ideally you should place the probe against the side of your fermenter as corncob stated, but it may not be ideal if you have more than one inside at once. If you do plan on putting more than one in at a time, then you should try to brew similar beers at the same time to get the fermentation schedule similar.

Short-term, you can dangle the probe in through the door gasket until you get it solved. I would drill a hole that is large enough to facilitate a rubber grommet (to protect your wires) and large enough to drop the probe and (PC) fan cord through. I'd also put some non-expanding foam in there to insulate it when done.

I would DEF put a fan in there to circulate the air. I like corncob's idea of the ducting. I used PVC in the back corner. I have it going straight up from the bottom and then kicks out at a 45 degree angle at the top to 'mix' the air. The fan is mounted up top and drags the cold air from the bottom to the top.

please forgive me for the noob question but tapeing the probe to the fermenter will show frementing temp?

barrog said:

please forgive me for the noob question but tapeing the probe to the fermenter will show frementing temp?

Click to expand...

The wort/beer is in contact with the walls of the fermenter, so they are both more or less the same temperature. When I tape my probe to the fermenter, I put it under a layer of bubble wrap to insulate it from the surrounding (air) temp.

Hope this helps.

@ThePearsonFam

Are you talking about the rubber gasket around the lid that meets the freezer when closed? I can drill a hole through that?

I'm assuming that you mean tape the probe to the outside of the fermentation bucket I'm only going to have one at a time.

Thanks everyone! I love this forum!