I've finally got around to posting pictures of my DIY fermenation chamber / cabinet. I built it from 3/4" sheets of insulation board and I glued two sheets together giving me a total thickness of 1.5". As a note I kept the reflective foil pointing outward on each sheet. I used an old mini-fridge as the cooling source. I also used foil tape over all of the edges and seams. I wanna say I built it for about $80 to $100 for the sheets of insulation, foil tape, and liquid nail used to glue the sheets together.
Here is an external shot of the entire chamber. The Y shaped elastic strap is what pulls the doors tight against the walls sealing it shut.
Heres the chamber with the doors off. As you can see there is a partition separating the cooling source side and the true fermenter side.
The source of the cooling is produced by this small mini-fridge. It is sealed into an opening in the outer wall of the chamber using foil tape.
The air is exchanged and circulated by two 12v 80mm pc fans.
(As a side note it may be smarter that the fan that draws in the cold air in to the ferementer side be located at the bottom rather than the top, as we all know heat rises, but in its current setup it seems to work fine).
In the fridge side there is a second small partition used to "separate" the fans.
The fans are driven by a 12v AC/DC power adapter, and controlled by a digital thermostat. I have been able to keep the temperature the in fermentation side at its lowest of about 55 degrees ambient air temp.
I can fit two 6.5 gallon primary fermenters inside or two 5 gallon secondary fermenters and as shown below a combination of a 6.5 and 5 gallon carboy next to each other. I did not take a picture of it but I can also fit a single 5 gallon carboy into the fridge side, this allows cold conditioning or lager temp fermentation's. I can also fit a corny keg if need be.
I use two corded battery powered reptile tank thermometers so I can read externally on either the fridge or fermenter side to see where the ambient temp is, this way I don't have to open the doors to look at the thermostat.
Here I have shown the edge of one of the doors. I glued one additional sheet of insulation board on the inside of each door, its size on each edge is shorter by exactly 1.5", this creates a internal lip to help the door seal.
On the face where the doors meet the walls I used weather stripping to help create a better seal.
Here is an external shot of the entire chamber. The Y shaped elastic strap is what pulls the doors tight against the walls sealing it shut.
Heres the chamber with the doors off. As you can see there is a partition separating the cooling source side and the true fermenter side.
The source of the cooling is produced by this small mini-fridge. It is sealed into an opening in the outer wall of the chamber using foil tape.
The air is exchanged and circulated by two 12v 80mm pc fans.
(As a side note it may be smarter that the fan that draws in the cold air in to the ferementer side be located at the bottom rather than the top, as we all know heat rises, but in its current setup it seems to work fine).
In the fridge side there is a second small partition used to "separate" the fans.
The fans are driven by a 12v AC/DC power adapter, and controlled by a digital thermostat. I have been able to keep the temperature the in fermentation side at its lowest of about 55 degrees ambient air temp.
I can fit two 6.5 gallon primary fermenters inside or two 5 gallon secondary fermenters and as shown below a combination of a 6.5 and 5 gallon carboy next to each other. I did not take a picture of it but I can also fit a single 5 gallon carboy into the fridge side, this allows cold conditioning or lager temp fermentation's. I can also fit a corny keg if need be.
I use two corded battery powered reptile tank thermometers so I can read externally on either the fridge or fermenter side to see where the ambient temp is, this way I don't have to open the doors to look at the thermostat.
Here I have shown the edge of one of the doors. I glued one additional sheet of insulation board on the inside of each door, its size on each edge is shorter by exactly 1.5", this creates a internal lip to help the door seal.
On the face where the doors meet the walls I used weather stripping to help create a better seal.
