Ferm Cabinet.

The start of my long day.

Mini fridge to cool the cabinet.

Frame 8' wide x 2 deep x 39" tall.

Top and bottom in place and casters attached, now 42" tall.

Fridge locked in place and back and side wall installed.




Temp inside cabinet was about 64 when I closed it up, after about 10min temp dropped 4 degrees. Let's hope this continues and holds a little lower. Would like to be able to adjust temp from 50 - 70. Not sure if it will get that low. GREAT STUFF will be my new friend.

 

Smart putting it on wheels! A small fan to circulate air would help.

 

Umm, he's got two in there.

 

What kind, and how much insulation did you install?

 

1" R 6.8 sheeting.

But I think I am going to get in today and double up everything and cover all the exposed wood. I think I am loosing alot of cold through the wood.

System ran for 10 hrs and only got down to 58.4 but the outside temp is about 61, I dont think I would be able to hold that low temp if it got much warmer in my garage.

 

Bummer. I'm not sure how much clearance you have, but I noticed you didn't put any insulation on the floor (and not sure about the ceiling either). You might be losing quite a bit of coolness there.

How many carboys/buckets you fermenting at a time?

 

The ceiling and floor booth have insulation. The insulation is under the wood on the floor, the wood is only about 1/8" thick on floor. I just didn't take the time to cover all the cross boards and everything because it was late. Going to shut it all down today and go ahead and cover everything and seal any gaps I didn't find last night.

I will give that a shot and let you all know if it improves.

I only ferment 2 buckets at a time for the most part but I wanted room to condition in bottles.

 

Be sure you have the thermo turned to the coldest position on your fridge.

 

You might also think about adding some insulation on the sides and back of the fridge. Only leaving the compressor space open.

It wouldn't hurt things and could only help.

Nice looking build.

 

I totally missed that. Can't blame either.

 

Alright just finished doubling all the insulation and filling more gaps with 2 cans of STUFF.

Going to let the STUFF dry, seal it up and see what happens.

 

looks cool man, nice work.

 

this may be a dumb question, but i'll ask it anyway. I'm assuming you used the fridge as a cooling source since you already had it, but if you were building a cabinet of that size, wouldn't a window AC unit provide more efficient cooling? Seems like that might be a very big space for a machine designed to cool a much much smaller area. Again, not criticizing, just looking for some clarification.

 

Very nice build! I was thinking of building a 2 tier table similar to yours for my basement, just to hold carboys and all my supplies.

The whole mini-fridge as a cooler for lagering sounds very interesting. How cold are you able to keep it, and how bad is your electric bill for having it running it all the time?

 

Not real sure at the moment, we have had some pretty low temps the past couple of days so I will have to wait till it warms up a bit before I know how low I can hold the temps. Don't think it is going much lower than 55 or so. But that's fine because I will set it to 64 for most fermenting.

I will update you with the difference in electric bill when I know, but it will prob be a little while until it warms up a bit here.