Fermentation Chamber Filling Up With Water

[AlexKay]

I have two chest freezers on temperature controllers in my garage that I use as fermentation chambers. In each one, I have a small desk fan at the bottom, always on and blowing upwards. I've found that the fan keeps temperatures relatively even, and as a bonus generates enough heat that I don't need to use a reptile bulb or the like. This set-up has been working fine for 4+ years now.

BUT. When I started, everything was in fermenters with airlocks. After I time, I started fermenting very hoppy beers in kegs. Recently, I moved to fermenting every beer in a keg, jumpered to purge a second keg with fermentation gas, and then using a blowoff tube and switching to a spunding valve some of the way in. This means, as far as I can figure it, two important changes as far as the fermentation chambers go:

• the freezer lids now have to accommodate one or more 5/16" plastic tubes running fermentation gas out, so the lids don't close all the way and the seal is compromised.
• CO2 is now being vented to the garage instead of inside the chest freezers (I suspect this is the more important change.)

I now have a condensation problem in my fermentation chambers. "Problem" in this case means they are literally filling up with water over time; if I had to estimate, 1/4"-1/2" of standing water on the bottom per week. It is messy, gross, probably unhygienic, and not at all good for the air-circulation fans.

It seems like this is too much water to be removed with absorbents like Drierite.

Solutions that I've come up with:

• replacing or supplementing the lid seal with foam to accommodate the tubing
• putting in bulkhead gas feedthroughs so I can run fermentation gas out while keeping the lid closed
• purging the chambers with dry gas, either from a tank or by ducting the output of a dehumidifier

All of these seem a hassle. Has anyone dealt with this before and come up with a clever, out-of-the-box (actually, literally inside-the-box) solution?

 

[Deadalus]

Do you have a collar installed that raises the lid height?

 

[Broken Crow]

Can you lift the whole thing up and drill a hole to epoxy a drain and maybe drip-tray underneath such as commercial refrigeration units have?

 

[wepeeler]

You're going to get condensation and water in the bottom of the chest freezer if the lid isn't sealed.

One of my chest freezers does that, because my CO2 tank is on the outside. I bought a wet vac and suck it out fairly regularly. The other option for me would be to just put the CO2 tank into the chest freezer, but I can't always do that when they are full of kegs.

 

[sibelman]

Directing fermentation gas out of the box should do the trick. A drain is also a reasonable solution, as @Broken Crow suggested.

My own fridge-as-fermentation-chamber has no condensation, possibly because of the incredibly poor seal of the door and low ambient humidity.

Best of luck, @AlexKay

 

[day_trippr]

The problem is ambient moisturized air is constantly being drawn into the freezer, not that fermentation gas isn't getting out. I would add collars to raise the lids enough to be able to close them tight again...

Cheers!

 

[AlexKay]

The problem is ambient moisturized air is constantly being drawn into the freezer, not that fermentation gas isn't getting out. I would add collars to raise the lids enough to be able to close them tight again...

Cheers!

No, no. I’m saying that previously, CO2 coming out of the fermenters through the airlocks was filling up the fermentation freezer and keeping (some or most) ambient air out. Now that I’m piping all the CO2 out the freezer more ambient air is getting in.

 

[sbro]

If I understand what you are saying, when using airlocks, the freezer lid was closed tight and the CO2 was slightly pressurizing the freezer and finding a way out (drain hole, or burping the lid seal, or some other spot).

That would prevent any outside humid air from entering and condensing.
Now that you have the lid cracked open a bit and no pressure from the CO2, you are getting moisture entering the fridge which is condensing.
Doing as @day_trippr said with a collar or trying to seal the gap with weatherstrip, or some other entry should be the most help.

 

[Northriverrick]

I’ve gotta ask the dumb question here…Why do you care about venting the CO2 out of your fermentation chamber? Isn’t this the root cause of your issues?

 

[mac_1103]

Why do you care about venting the CO2 out of your fermentation chamber?

Possibly to capture it for purging kegs and such. Not enough room for all of that inside?

 

[AlexKay]

I’ve gotta ask the dumb question here…Why do you care about venting the CO2 out of your fermentation chamber? Isn’t this the root cause of your issues?

Totally reasonable question. When I ferment in a keg, I route the CO2 through a second keg so that it purges out all of the O2 automatically during the fermentation. I could keep the second keg (and the blowoff tube or spunding valve) in the chamber as well, but then I have less space in there. If the kegs to be purged are outside, I can make more beer.

I'm currently fermenting 6 batches in my two chambers, and two batches at ambient in the garage.

 

[Deadalus]

Have you looked to see if you have a drain plug? Mine has one as they are usually not frost free and need to be manually defrosted. Putting a collar on it isn't particularly hard which is why asked. It creates more space and can result in being able to use the hump for 5 gallon kegs and potentially another shortie keg if you are using those.