Hello all,
Working on a few projects around the home brewery and I am wanting some better fermentation control. I have a basement that has relatively friendly temperatures, ~68* in the summer and down to ~58 in the winter. That being said I had some very slow fermentations this winter with some ales trying to ferment down at 60.
In any case, I have two areas in my house that I can build into some sort of finished room for fermentation. One in the basement, the other in the garage - its a small 'hallway' off the back of the garage.
I feel like a fermentation room would need minimal temperature control using a mini fridge or something along those lines and could be maintained for ales (moderate heating/cooling of the room) whereas for lagers i'd just need a glycol jacket on the conicals. I also think this option is extremely simple to implement since it'd just be putting a door up and using some insulation.
The other option is a walk in cooler. Probably would utilize the A/C unit type of cooling design. This is problematic for the basement I would think, as the back of the AC unit would still be inside the basement, so not necessarily attractive. In the garage it would be outside. The problem I see here is to do ales I'd need a method of heating conicals/carboys. Those heat wrap pads aren't cheap.
I have the capabilities, no WAF to deal with as I'm single. Just not sure which route is the best route. Those of you who have a walk in cooler, are you using it for fermentation or only storage?
The fun option is to just do both!
Working on a few projects around the home brewery and I am wanting some better fermentation control. I have a basement that has relatively friendly temperatures, ~68* in the summer and down to ~58 in the winter. That being said I had some very slow fermentations this winter with some ales trying to ferment down at 60.
In any case, I have two areas in my house that I can build into some sort of finished room for fermentation. One in the basement, the other in the garage - its a small 'hallway' off the back of the garage.
I feel like a fermentation room would need minimal temperature control using a mini fridge or something along those lines and could be maintained for ales (moderate heating/cooling of the room) whereas for lagers i'd just need a glycol jacket on the conicals. I also think this option is extremely simple to implement since it'd just be putting a door up and using some insulation.
The other option is a walk in cooler. Probably would utilize the A/C unit type of cooling design. This is problematic for the basement I would think, as the back of the AC unit would still be inside the basement, so not necessarily attractive. In the garage it would be outside. The problem I see here is to do ales I'd need a method of heating conicals/carboys. Those heat wrap pads aren't cheap.
I have the capabilities, no WAF to deal with as I'm single. Just not sure which route is the best route. Those of you who have a walk in cooler, are you using it for fermentation or only storage?
The fun option is to just do both!
