Screwy's Fermentation Chamber

[ScrewyBrewer]

I've been fermenting my ales in my home office, placing the Mr. Beer fermentation kegs on my desktop and using a window air conditioning unit to maintain 70F during the warmer months. After brewing 30 separate ale recipes and fermenting them this way I decided it was time to consider using a fermentation chamber to control the temperatures instead.

The design criteria was simple the chamber had to hold up to 4 Mr. Beer kegs, since I usually brew multiple batches on the weekend. It also had to be very well insulated since it would be cooled using frozen water bottles. Oh and I almost forgot to mention that the wood used to construct the chamber had to be cut and assembled using only a small jigsaw, a 3/8" power hand drill and a few screw drivers.

Click for more...Screwy's Fermentation Chamber

 

[mattmauriello]

pretty straight forward. if you want to make it not so straightforward, throw in some design from 'son of a fermentation chamber', where you isolate the ice chamber from the Ale chamber, and use a fan and thermostat to move air between the chambers when it gets higher.

 

[ScrewyBrewer]

pretty straight forward. if you want to make it not so straightforward, throw in some design from 'son of a fermentation chamber', where you isolate the ice chamber from the Ale chamber, and use a fan and thermostat to move air between the chambers when it gets higher.

mattmauriello thanks for the tip, I'll check it out. My design is elegant in its simplicity as cold air naturally falls to the bottom of the chamber pushing the warmer air up to be cooled.

 

[ScrewyBrewer]

I finally got to use my new fermentation chamber this past weekend. I brewed 4 different lager beer recipes this past weekend and now each of the 2 gallon Mr. Beer fermenters are sitting inside the chamber fermenting away at 50F. I pitched the lager yeast at 65F and placed the fermenters in the chamber one by one, so initially it took about 8 frozen water bottles to get the temperature down. Every 12 hours or so, for the first 2-3 days, I had to swap out 5 frozen water bottles to maintain the temperature. After 1 week I now only have to swap out 2 bottles every 12 hours to maintain the same temperature.

 

[ScrewyBrewer]

I got around to applying a coat of stain to the fermentation chamber the picture below shows the digital clock thermometer, the wired sensor stays inside the chamber to display the temperature. I like the fact that I can open the top to swap out the frozen water bottles without having to open the bottom door and letting warm air inside.

 

[ScrewyBrewer]

I put my latest all grain lager batches inside the fermentation chamber last weekend where they'll sit at 54F for about 28 days to ferment. I can pack all 6 of my Mr. Beer fermenters inside with very little room to spare.