Fermenting Chamber Build

[Brewing Clamper]

Ok, so I'm currently on the research stage of this... I have a small chest freezer I'm currently using. I want to take it apart and build the chamber with its guts. Do most chest freezers have cooling coils on all four sides or just one? Anyone out there with chest freezer dismantling experience?

 

[ScottSA]

why don't people want to keep the whole freezer? better control? condensation? space?

 

[hamiltont]

Just use an air conditioner.....

 

[marc06]

I'm about to do the same thing, disassemble a minifridge for my fermentation chamber. I am tearing out the guts because I only have a small area to work with and I want to have as many carboys as possible in there, rather than loosing the space.

 

[Randar]

I don't think you'll be able to tell about the cooling coils until to rip it apart.

I also have been looking into this but for it to make sense for where I would have to keep it, I would have to be able to heat it as well. I have seen people use light bulbs, but doesn't that counter the "light is bad for beer" intuition? Thinking about ripping an old heating pad up unless I can think of something more efficient and (more) safe.

 

[Brewing Clamper]

ScottUSA, the reason I don't want to keep the whole thing is that it's very space inefficient. I can only fit 1 15gl fermenter and one bucket in there, I would like to be able to do two 15gl & a bucket. The hump where the compressor sits screws everything up. I can also build it so that it is about 3 ft off the ground and use gravity to rack into kegs. That's pretty much my idea for now...

 

[Ace_Club]

I've also been looking into building a fermentation chamber. Less worried about keeping it cool (I have an extra refrigerator for that) and more about keeping them warm in the cold Illinois months. From what I've seen, Randar, one can use either a Fermwrap or a ceramic bulb (similar to those used for reptile enclosures) to keep the chamber warm without exposing the beer to a light source.

 

[Dwain]

Brewing Clamper,
To answer your question,

Do most chest freezers have cooling coils on all four sides or just one?

Most have coils on all 4 sides. These two threads document my experience with using a freezer to make a lagering chamber:

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f51/holiday-lch0701pw-freezer-122466/

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f51/i-give-up-124057/

As you can tell, I abandoned my plan and used a CL fridge to make the chamber with. Hopefully, you can glean some info from it. Luck - Dwain