DIY Fermentation Chamber

[Mismost]

That's what I would up doing after a lot of number crunching (lumber, rigid insulation, sealants at cheap) and trips to look at ragged out mini fridges....I just caught a Home Depot sale on a chest freezer....$160.00 and bought a controller $30.00. It is pretty much plug and play....and if you count your time as worth anything (I do) cheaper.
I do have an All-In-One vacuum wine pump and I just rack into or out of the chamber with minimal lifting involved.
So for less than 200 bucks, I was done. As a bonus, with temp controller, I can use unit as a spare fridge for the garden, beer cooler, for drying sausage, and even as an actual freezer! Plus I think the chest design is just more efficent than having a vertical door energy wise.
Not downing this build at all...if I had a mini fridge, I may gone that route.

 

[micraftbeer]

Great stuff! Very creative, and excellent instructions. Makes me feel like I could do it myself...

 

[N3Bruce]

I have 2 options. My big 14 cf chest freezer is normally my kegerator, which has an external temperature control. I also have a dead chest freezer that I have a PID controller controlling a small heating pad (50 watts or so) that I can use to raise the temperature above ambient in the winter, particularly handy for fermenting Belgians, or keeping beer warm while bottle conditioning. I also have a small upright fridge for use as my "Beer Fridge" when using my chest freezer as a lagering chamber.

 

[khannon]

Have you considered a fan in the fridge side to move the air and make it more consistent, cool other side faster?

 

[CastleSeven]

I too was worried about how often the compressor would have to kick on and what kind of impact that would have on the lifetime of my fridge.
In the summer months it has to come on more often, but right now in my garage it's ~80 degrees and the fridge kicks on roughly once an hour for 5 - 10 minutes to keep my current beer at 68 degF.

 

[CastleSeven]

The only place I notice any condensation is near the coils where the fridge has it's small "freezer" section. I added a cheap Eva-dry renewable mini dehumidifier and just make sure I towel out the fridge when I swap beers. No other issues so far.

 

[CastleSeven]

Hahah, yea, it got really hot really fast inside, if she didn't let me out we'd have a problem for sure.
I haven't had any issues with the foam being sticky. It does take some finesse to get a bucket out (I can't just grate it along the surface of the foam without doing some damage, so a layer of plexi is a good idea.

 

[CastleSeven]

The build detailed above works very well. I've had it running for over a year now, no issues whatsoever. I haven't pushed it to the limits but I've had 4 5-gallon batches in there at a time, and I've pushed the temp down to 52*F in the summer.
The heat exchanger portion of the fridge is left uncovered by insulation, so while other builds might be MORE efficient, this chamber does everything I want it to with the materials I had on hand.

 

[CastleSeven]

Yep! I can't believe I left that out above. A small USB powered computer fan sits in the back of the fridge and helps to make temps more consistent.

 

[peterlonz]

Good effort but I think too many shortcomings.
Most have been addressed by other commentators so little need to repeat.
My (Muntons plastic bucket) fermentor, capacity 23 pints, is rather heavy & certainly would not be easy to place in either a chest or front load chamber.
BTW what did your wife charge to let you out?

 

[Starganderfish]

Nice, I did the opposite of this to bring up my brew temperature during winter. At the time I was forced to brew in an old tin shed behind my house, It was out of the direct sun so wasn't too bad in summer but in winter the temp's dropped so low even lager's struggled. I basically built a ply wood box large enough to hold four 30 L plastic fermenters. I lined the interior with reflective foil insulation, sealed the gaps with spray foam filler and then bought an electric heating cable (designed for plant propagation) which i was able to zig-zag around the interior walls. Hooked it up to a thermometer controlled power switch and was able to maintain stable temperatures all winter. As the heating element was only on occasionally to maintain the interior temperatures, and the 120 L of liquid acted as a decent heat sink, it didn't cost that much to run. I've since moved house and the somewhat flimsy construction didn't survive the move, but I have an insulated brick garage now so it's no longer needed. In hindsight I should have used thicker ply or MDF for the walls as the ridiculously thin ply was pretty fragile and provided minimal insulation. The reflective insulation was great for reflecting the heat back into the chamber but a thicker foil covered foam insulation would have retained heat better. But for a cheap and quick option made on the fly it worked well.

 

[Starganderfish]

This!! I forgot about the Airlocks until halfway through building the frame on mine and had to tear it down and start again. D'oh!!

 

[captjpr]

This is awesome! I've had an old mini fridge in my garage for a couple years, been trying to figure out how to take out the refrigeration guts and install it into a cabinet I'll build. This is the obvious easy answer. Can't wait to get started. I'm thinking about adding a storage cabinet on top of it for all my other beer paraphernalia.
Thanks for the great article.

 

[rabassa]

Would this work with a small chest freezer on it's side? I'm thinking a regular mini fridge may not be able to maintain layering temp for 3 fermentors at the same time...

 

[No_Nrg]

That makes sense. I have a 2.3 cu ft fridge I may repurpose in this fashion to allow me to fit 5 gallon fermenters, thanks for the write up.

 

[ginger_beer]

i have built this, thanks for the info. I was curious as to what you set the fridge itself on. The reason I'm asking is because it seems to be taking a while for it to cool the inside down. I started out on the lowest setting but i felt the compressor and it was pretty hot, so I shut it off to cool. Then i put it on it lowest setting and it seems to be alright but I'm not sure. How cold do you get yours? Do you get it down in stages or just run it till if finally gets to the temp you want. I apologize for all the questions, I just don't want to jack up my little fridge.

 

[Eric]

Mismost, I have an older style home refrigerator one with the freezer on top. Do you know if i can simply buy a two way temp controller to which i would directly plug the standard refrigerator into? Would this allow the fridge to keep the air temp inside at 68 degrees for standard ales?
thanks

 

[Control Your Fermentation]

[…] The mini fridge option requires a bit of DIY as you’ll need to build a shell of wood and rigid foam. In this setup, you’ll remove the mini fridge door so it cools the whole chamber. The best thing about this one is you can build to any size you need and you won’t have as much heavy lifting. This one will still require something to heat with. Be wary of this method as you’ll be stressing your little mini fridge by cooling a larger space than it was intended for. Homebrewtalk offers a really nice guide on how to build one here. […]