Fermentation chamber from Rockstar fridge

[Jayjay1976]

I just put this together over the weekend; a can-shaped energy drink fridge I picked up for $75 on letgo re-purposed as a programmable fermentation chamber. The wire baskets lift out and my 7g Fermonster fits perfectly inside with room for air to circulate. I'll be making a custom foam lid with opening for an airlock to protrude as soon as I work out a form to fill up with great stuff.

For now I'm testing the controller so there are just bottled waters and apple cider in there as thermal mass. The Inkbird ITC-310T is working great so far, but the sensor wire has a loose connection that sometimes causes errors so a replacement is on the way. You can see the set point is lower than the actual right now, I had just adjusted it lower for further testing and it had yet to catch up. Can't wait to try it out with some lager yeast!

 

[Hopsimus]

Rock on! (pun intended)

I have the exact same setup!

I was going to build a custom lid too, but after using the fridge a few times for brews and not having any issues I haven't gotten around to it.
So far I've only done ales though, so it might behave differently at lager temps.

I actually cut up the wire baskets and made one into a low one inch shelf. I figured I would get slightly better airflow around my carboy that way.
I also coated the cut ends in liquid rubber to keep the wire from rusting.

Cheers!

 

[Jayjay1976]

Rock on! (pun intended)

I have the exact same setup!

I was going to build a custom lid too, but after using the fridge a few times for brews and not having any issues I haven't gotten around to it.
So far I've only done ales though, so it might behave differently at lager temps.

I actually cut up the wire baskets and made one into a low one inch shelf. I figured I would get slightly better airflow around my carboy that way.
I also coated the cut ends in liquid rubber to keep the wire from rusting.

Cheers!

Hey cool, I'm glad I'm not the only one! The thermostat knob on my fridge doesn't seem to function, I keep testing it lower and lower trying to find its cutoff, I hope it's below 32f. I'm super interested in your modified baskets, can you post some pics of it? Also, does your fridge have a fan in the interior? I'm planning to chop down its housing to let the carboy sit lower. What type of carboy do you use? Sorry for asking so many questions, just happy to have found someone else using this setup.

 

[Hopsimus]

Mine doesn't seem to have a thermostat knob (at least not that I can find). I've read there are different versions though, so that isn't really surprising.

Mine gets down to 35F or so, which I think is ok. It would be nice for cold crashing if it made it down right above freezing. I'm not sure how much difference it would make though.

I'll try to take some pictures of the basket tonight when I get back home.

No fan in mine. I thought about rigging one up, but with such a small chamber I'm not sure it would matter too much. I figure while a batch is fermenting it is circulating the wort enough by itself so it probably doesn't get hot/cool spots, but I may be wrong.

I've been using the wide mouth class carboys from kegco: https://www.kegco.com/home-brewing-equipment/carboys/sd-7340j/
They work pretty well. They are a little shorter and fatter than a regular carboy, so that gives me a bit more space to work with. I've read other threads where people have fit regular 6 gallon fermentation buckets in theirs.

 

[Hopsimus]

Here are a couple pictures of what I did to the wire basket.
It keeps the carboy about 1-1/2" off the bottom of the fridge.
In the first image you can also see a heating wrap I use for warming up certain brews.

 

[KIDD69]

What a great idea and a great find! I think I'll keep an eye out for one of these.