Space efficient fermentation chamber for an apartment?

[vance]

I'm looking at getting some sort of mini fridge to do fermentation in... unfortunately, my budget is fairly low since most of my extra homebrewing money is being saved for kegging. Right now I use standard 6.5 gallon buckets, but I'm thinking of picking up a better bottle too. What size mini fridge do I need to fit one of these?

 

[Jakor]

In my experience, buckets don't fit well in a mini fridge due to the compressor hump in the back. I have 3 fermenters (Better Bottle, bucket, and a wide mouth), and only the bucket does not fit anymore. I would suggest looking for a fridge that does not have a freezer section. The "freezer" is the evaporator coil, meaning you can't remove it, as it is what makes the fridge cold.

The below thread discusses specific models, but my biggest suggestion is to avoid any wine cooler types of fridges.

As for finding one within budget, look on craigslist or consider driving to a local college campus soon. A lot of people are moving right now and leave these types of things on the curb for whoever wants them.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=280759

 

[Islandboy85]

I'd the compressor hump is an issue, but the fridge has proper width/height you can build a wooden collar to space the door further away from the fridge body. I've seen some guys do that for kegerstors also.

 

[Sadu]

I just implemented this...
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=590275

Put your fermenter in a swamp cooler. Use the fridge to control the temperature of the swamp cooler water. This lets you chill normal-sized fermenters with just a mini-fridge since the fermenter doesn't have to fit in the fridge.

I haven't done full testing on this - I believe it will be fine for fermenting lagers at 50f/10c, but I doubt it will get down to 40f/4c for lagering/crash cooling.

None of these parts are expensive, especially if you do the STC-1000 wiring yourself and bend the immersion chiller.