Elevated Six Carboy Fermentation Chamber

Plan was to build a fermentation chamber large enough for six carboys that was off the ground a few feet and front loading. This would
1) make is easier for carboys to go in and out
2) able rack to secondary without moving primary vessel
3) provide storage space underneath.

Father-in-law gets the credit for building the wood housing and I took it from there.

Details:
Ranco Two-Stage Temperature Controller
Mini-fridge for cooling cycle
Ceramic Heater for heating cycle

Frame with legs mocked up:


Wooden Housing:


Lined interior walls w/ 1.5” insulation:


2” layer on walls, ceiling, floor, and door. Foam stripping for seal and plywood covered in plastic sheet for flooring support:


Removable plastic flooring:


Mini-fridge with computer fan wired to cooling, ceramic heater wired to heating:


Ranco Controller hiding in back:


Kind of hard to see, but I built three triple outlets into wall at the top right. Heating cycle, cooling cycle, and always on. Will probably never use all of them, but wanted to build flexibility into the system:


Toggle clamps to compress door for good seal:

Final Product! Added whiteboard to front door.




Just finished it last night, going to do a trial run tonight.

You may be thinking no way that little fridge will cool that much space. The catch is I live in Alaska so really the cooling will almost never be on. Anchorage high last year was 78 and my garage is always a few degrees less than outside. In winter garage is about 55. So this is basically a heating chamber to keep ale temperatures. Might be possible to lager in it this winter if I turn the garage temps down to assist.

Always open to thoughts/suggestions!

(also finished setting up the three tier)

Added the dimensions here:



Interior dimensions ended up at 30" x 45" which is overkill for six carboys, you could go smaller.

It might make sense to change the dimension a little to make better use of standard sizes of plywood and insulation. Changing total length of the long walls to 48" would help. I had to make a lot of weird cuts and waste some material based on these dimensions.

Update: Brewed EdWort's Bavarian Hefe and cooling cycle held fermentation from going above my temperature setting of 67 during the initial stages (temp probe in thermowell). Now heating cycle is keeping it up at 64 as fermentation has slowed. Very happy so far!

That's really neat. Nicely done.

Nice build! You need to post a pic of it filled

Thanks y'all!

Transamguy77 said:

You need to post a pic of it filled

Click to expand...

I'm working on it

Awesome! Thanks for sharing

kpr121 said:

Awesome! Thanks for sharing

Click to expand...

Thank kpr! Funny thing is, about half way through this project I started thinking that I should have just used a chest freezer underneath rather than a side fridge since it is already elevated enough for it. With some metal grating as the fermentor floor it may have been more efficient and would take up less space. Anyways, if I did it over again, it would look a little more similar to what you are building.

Also, in your build I noticed that you mentioned the getting the front door to seal. If you are interested, here is a link to the toggle clamps that I used to make the door seal tightly against the weather stripping:
http://www.thetoggleclampstore.com/431.html

KILLER WORK! That is very well done man! Lets see it FULL..LOL

Cheers
Jay

Nice job! Thanks for posting.

Spludge said:

Thank kpr! Funny thing is, about half way through this project I started thinking that I should have just used a chest freezer underneath rather than a side fridge since it is already elevated enough for it. With some metal grating as the fermentor floor it may have been more efficient and would take up less space. Anyways, if I did it over again, it would look a little more similar to what you are building.

Also, in your build I noticed that you mentioned the getting the front door to seal. If you are interested, here is a link to the toggle clamps that I used to make the door seal tightly against the weather stripping:
http://www.thetoggleclampstore.com/431.html

Click to expand...

I’m sure you will find something to fill up that space below! Us homebrewers are always in need of more storage!

Thanks for the link, I do think I am going to go the toggle clamp route. Will require a little bit of tweaking of my design but I think a good seal is essential in these types of setups to minimize moisture.

Cheers