Portable fermenter

[mountainwise]

I joined a brewing club that shut down for coronavirus reasons. We're hoping to reboot the club with members brewing at home using the club's equipment. But the real barrier is fermentation. How do we (cheaply, <$200) create or buy a "collapsable fermentation chamber" that can be easily driven from house to house. In small cars. Any ideas?

 

[day_trippr]

A suitable mini fridge, Inkbird 308 controller, and a small heat source (seedling mat?) should come in close to that...

Cheers!

 

[matt_m]

Not enough information here. What's going in the chamber? A 5 gallon bucket? 50 buckets?

 

[mountainwise]

Not enough information here. What's going in the chamber? A 5 gallon bucket? 50 buckets?

Good point. I'm aiming to be able to store one 8-gallon (5-gallon batch) bucket. I'm imagining something like this fold-up beer cooler but with a small plug-in cooling unit on the side (condenser-based, probably) that can be run with a standard controller like the Inkbird mentioned above. The reason for this post is the 8-gallon bucket goal. My last fridge setup was the smallest fridge that fit 8-gallon buckets, and it was way too big for easy passing around between friends.

 

[matt_m]

Cheap and light, 2" pink panels pinned together with dowels would make a knock-down chamber. Take the door off a small fridge for a cooling source. The seams are all going to leak pretty good unless you tape them up but you could do that and just slit the tape each time. Doubt that you could cold-crash with it but with a heating belt or pad you should be able to cover a pretty wide range of temps.

 

[mountainwise]

I think that's a great solution. Thanks!

 

[Scott705]

Anvil brewing has some great fermenter 71/2 gallons for 129$
5 1/2 gallons for 99$
Stainless steel too