Raised Chest Freezer

[louis]

My current plan for lagering beer is to use a chest freezer and a stc 1000 temperature controller.

I am choosing to use a chest freezer mostly for efficiency and they are fairly cheap to get used or even new if I have too. I am thinking of building a stand or something for the chest freezer so that it is raised and I can then rack my beer with out moving it out of the freezer.

Has anyone done this? thoughts?

 

[jddevinn]

Do you keg or bottle?

 

[louis]

Do you keg or bottle?

I bottle. I will eventually be kegging but that is in cloudy future...

 

[jddevinn]

I have never bottled.... back when I used carboys and a chest freezer I would force transfer with a very low pressure CO2. Much easier than a syphon. In fact you could probably get a CO2 tank just for transfers for cheaper than raising the freezer.

You would also still need to get over the "hump" of the freezer sidewall. This would stop you from being able to do syphonless transfers by just raising it up.

 

[louis]

I was concerned with the hump too. I thought I could just go with a pump for racking but I'm not sure...

 

[jddevinn]

Most of the pumps used in home brewing applications need to be primed as well.

 

[day_trippr]

fwiw, my keezer sits atop a dolly that provides a 10" lift...



...though that's likely not high enough to reliably maintain an effective siphon to a carboy on the floor.
And if it was tall enough (say, another 12" or so) it'd make loading a freshly filled fermenter that much more difficult.

I do CO2-pushed transfers and would consider that route before elevating the freezer...

Cheers!