My family has been in the pizza business for 27 years now. We have collected a lot of equipment over the years some of which we don't use anymore. When I was down at our storage shed the other day I noticed we had an old 4 foot make line unit sitting there. It had been down there since we closed down a location back in 2000. I asked my dad if he cared if I used it for beer and he didn't care so I got it home today.
So here it is. For those who haven't seen these before, the two doors have storage underneath and the top two lids open up and that is where pizza toppings would normally be located.
It has removable shelves underneath.
Plenty of room underneath to fit a fermenter when the shelve are taken out.
Here is where you'd put in inserts for all the different pizza toppings.
Even already has a Johnson temperature controller hooked up to it.
It has been sitting around for 12 years. I plugged it in and the compressor runs, but it wasn't getting cold so I will have to have our refrigeration guy come to my house and most likely charge it up with some R-22. Once that happens I should be able to keep 2 fermenters at 65 no problem as is. Not bad for a "free" frementation chamber.
But I have bigger plans. What I want to do is build an insulated cabinet that fits over where the pizza toppings would normally go. I'll have a couple of fans that blow cold air up from below. I'll keep the cabinet at around 65-degrees for ales. I should be able to easily fit 2 and hopefully fit 3 fermenters in there. Then I can keep the space below in the 40's to keep ingredients and pull the shelves out for either cold-crashing and/or fermenting lagers.
It is going to be a little while before I can build the cabinet but I will post pictures when I get around to it. Even with no modifications this thing will still make a good fermentation chamber, once I get the cabinet built I think it will be awesome.
So here it is. For those who haven't seen these before, the two doors have storage underneath and the top two lids open up and that is where pizza toppings would normally be located.
It has removable shelves underneath.
Plenty of room underneath to fit a fermenter when the shelve are taken out.
Here is where you'd put in inserts for all the different pizza toppings.
Even already has a Johnson temperature controller hooked up to it.
It has been sitting around for 12 years. I plugged it in and the compressor runs, but it wasn't getting cold so I will have to have our refrigeration guy come to my house and most likely charge it up with some R-22. Once that happens I should be able to keep 2 fermenters at 65 no problem as is. Not bad for a "free" frementation chamber.
But I have bigger plans. What I want to do is build an insulated cabinet that fits over where the pizza toppings would normally go. I'll have a couple of fans that blow cold air up from below. I'll keep the cabinet at around 65-degrees for ales. I should be able to easily fit 2 and hopefully fit 3 fermenters in there. Then I can keep the space below in the 40's to keep ingredients and pull the shelves out for either cold-crashing and/or fermenting lagers.
It is going to be a little while before I can build the cabinet but I will post pictures when I get around to it. Even with no modifications this thing will still make a good fermentation chamber, once I get the cabinet built I think it will be awesome.