Basement eBrewery and Fermentation

[BostonBeerMaker]

I've been brewing for for about 25 years but I still feel like a novice. I get so much knowledge from all the passionate brewers here. It's such a wonderful community to be a part of. Thank you in advance for your responses.

I'm building a new house and am putting a brewery in the basement. Making the switch to electric which I'm very excited about and am looking at 30gal custom kettles and a 50amp panel.

That's the short background but here's my big question:
I make great beer but have never given fermentation temp control the attention it deserves. I've done things to make sure I was within acceptable ranges but I have never been diligent about it. Since I'm building a home brewery, I've been thinking about how to handle fermentation and there are a number of options available as you're all aware. There are conicals with attached glycol chillers, there are big refrigerators, fermentation chambers, etc. In talking to the builder, he presented another option and I'd like to hear from all of you about the pros and cons of it. He suggested temp controlling the entire brewery (250 square feet) with a special type of cooling unit like an air conditioner but made for wine cellars. I'm still waiting for the specs from him. This way I can use the brewery as one big fermentation chamber and not have to worry about additional refrigerators or glycol chillers. I'll leave that there and see what you guys think about this option before I chime in with more.

Looking forward to this!

 

[day_trippr]

It'd sure make cold-crashing much more interesting that it deserves
How often do you brew?

I often do a couple of brew days in a week - often within a couple of days. I have no desire to work in temperatures conducive to a kolsch or pilsner lager. Likewise if I'm crashing a couple of carboys from one batch I still want to work - and put up another batch. I don't even think a walk-in makes a lot of sense, unless it was sized to hold the finished product commensurate with the pipeline rate, and fermentations were done elsewhere.

Either standalone glycol'd chillers or a couple or more chambers makes the most sense to me. Independence allows parallelism and flexibility of schedule...

Cheers!

 

[Mike_kever_kombi]

Ambient heat exchange (as in a wine cellar type set up) is going to be the least efficient.

With 30 gallon set up, you will either need a large fermenter or multiple smaller ones. With a little bit of leg work, and possibly minor modifications, you could probably find a single large fermenter that could fit inside a larger refer unit. A used refer and temp controller is probably the most cost effective

The best bang for your buck will probably be a jacketed glycol chilled fermenter, especially if you are dead set on the 30 gallon kettles

 

[BostonBeerMaker]

Thanks for the replies guys. Still unsure of the direction I'll head in but you've both provided great feedback for me to keep in mind.