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I took an old 4'ish cubic feet mini fridge that was just being used for storage of some darker beer, some DME, some hoses...basically, not doing a whole bunch and decided I'd do a fermentation chamber build. Originally...I had very grandiose plans to build something that would house the fridge within a massive 72" long, 28" wide and 35" tall with a side panel door. It would fit (just barely) underneath my small work bench area in the garage and all would be good. It would allow me to store at least 3 5G fermenters of undetermined types. My 20 y/o son had moved out and taken my truck, so I asked him to go pick up the materials needed from Home Depot and I'd pay him back.
After surveying a couple damaged foam sheets, some questionably straight 2x4s and plywood combined with mounting doubts about my own ability to build something of this size, I asked him to return everything sans 2 2x4s and 2 1x2s.
A couple weeks later, and realizing that I had limited ability to ferment anything other than 1 5G batch (currently fermenting my first, AG 5G batch incidentally) I ventured back to home depot, ventured into the "craft" area where the pieces aren't as massive a purchased a couple pieces of plywood, foamboard and other assorted items. With my trusty Skil circular saw, that I think is probably older than my 20 y/o son, a drill and 2 crap sawhorses, I went to work for over 3.5 days. I made sooo many mistakes and at least 40% of the cuts are....not really crooked..but..not really straight either. Much smaller in size with this build, which is a good thing. I'm not certain this fridge would have been able to cool the chamber I had originally intended. This one is 29" long, 16.25" wide and 29.5" tall and the compressor kicks on about every 30-45'ish minutes trying to maintain 61 degrees F.
Had fun....learned alot, gained some confidence, have dropped hints about getting betters tools
and it is already in use. Fermenting a couple jugs of apple juice for cider at the moment. Waiting for some parts to come in for my speidel and I'll be throwing that next batch in there too.
After surveying a couple damaged foam sheets, some questionably straight 2x4s and plywood combined with mounting doubts about my own ability to build something of this size, I asked him to return everything sans 2 2x4s and 2 1x2s.
A couple weeks later, and realizing that I had limited ability to ferment anything other than 1 5G batch (currently fermenting my first, AG 5G batch incidentally) I ventured back to home depot, ventured into the "craft" area where the pieces aren't as massive a purchased a couple pieces of plywood, foamboard and other assorted items. With my trusty Skil circular saw, that I think is probably older than my 20 y/o son, a drill and 2 crap sawhorses, I went to work for over 3.5 days. I made sooo many mistakes and at least 40% of the cuts are....not really crooked..but..not really straight either. Much smaller in size with this build, which is a good thing. I'm not certain this fridge would have been able to cool the chamber I had originally intended. This one is 29" long, 16.25" wide and 29.5" tall and the compressor kicks on about every 30-45'ish minutes trying to maintain 61 degrees F.
Had fun....learned alot, gained some confidence, have dropped hints about getting betters tools
and it is already in use. Fermenting a couple jugs of apple juice for cider at the moment. Waiting for some parts to come in for my speidel and I'll be throwing that next batch in there too.
