The Weber Fermentation Chamber

[tipicreeper]

Hi Tim,
I have your thread as a favorite & very interested in your progress.
Any progress, thoughts, changes, etc........

 

[Zooom101]

my wife and I realized that we couldn't brew consistently or well if we didn't have better temperature control during fermentation.

I haven't even read the rest of the thread because I was so blown away by this statement. I didn't realize that wives were capable of such deep understanding of the intricacies of brewing. You're a lucky guy.

 

[RDWHAHB]

Looks great. How about a 2nd air duct to return air to the lager chamber? That way you aren't pushing cold air out, and drawing hot air into the lager chamber. Might have to work a bit less that way.
Cheers.

 

[TimWeber]

No futher progress so far... I've been distracted by my brewery build. The thing is still working great. We just compaired electric bills over the last couple of months and there is no significant change noticed. The thing is working great! Still holding at 35F.

Zooom HA! I am a lucky guy, my wife is also an engineer and obsessed with brewing. She writes for Ratebeer and has a blog called brewcookpairjoy.com. She's going to brewing school with me too.

 

[lcjustin]

This is fricken awesome!!! Im using a 13cu Chest Freezer and it can only hold 3 carboys. Was wondering what documentation you have on your build? Build Specs, how you overroad the AC unit, that kind of stuff.

 

[hoppymonkey]

+ 1 on that last question. This is much better than converting a chest freezer(s) and cheaper too.

 

[nu2brewing]

Any schematics on disabling the A/C unit PCB?

 

[John Beere]

Sigh.. I miss mine- a lot! But I'm about to build a new one and it will be very similar to what you've come up with, except it will be outside, under a lean-to as I've run out of room in my brewery.

I'm glad to see that the secondary chamber works like I originally imagined powered by another ranco and fan..

 

[KFH]

I hate to necro a thread, but this looks like an awesome idea and exactly what I've been looking for. My question is this: I'll most likely be building and keeping this in the garage. In Arizona. During the summer. Will the 5K BTU A/C be sufficient to maintain the temps, or should I look into getting a larger unit? How much more insulation would be required, if any?

 

[toolboxdiver]

Awesome Build thanks for posting

 

[o4_srt]

Any schematics on disabling the A/C unit PCB?

http://franklinbrew.org/members/sj/walkin.html

Basically, you just wire the 120 Vac power cord right to the compressor, then plug it into your controller.

 

[IndyAles]

Very nice!

 

[Shaggyt]

I'm in the process of incorporating a minifridge into my chamber and i'm curious as to how effective the single fan is at moving the cold air from your lager chamber to the ale chamber?

 

[corwin6654]

Does the lager side hold temp well enough that this can also be used for serving beer? I was thinking I could build this and while I have some beer conditioning or cold crashing, you can have a few kegs in there two, and just put a few taps through the top and serve out of it as well. Do you think that would work? Also, do you have any condensation issues? Does the A/C unit get a bunch of water in the back, and drip all over the floor? I'm thinking of making something like this and finishing it really nice with some sort of countertop and using it as a bar. If I can keep the A/C unit out of sight (perhaps behind the bar?) I can probably convince SWMBO to let me have this in the house.

 

[Cosper123]

How do you discharge the capacitor?

 

[kickrjason]

I had to disable to the PCB on the AC unit in order to force it to cool below 65. I'll follow up with a schematic as soon as I find it.

Any luck on the schematic? I have an Stc-1000 Controller running a mini fridge fermentation chamber. I have a feeling the fridge is in its last legs. I would like to swap in an A/C unit. Any assistance you can provide on how you bypassed wiring etc would be very handy.

 

[everythingforeign]

Any updates on how it holds temperature?

 

[joetownhound]

any updates on how it holds temperature?

+1

 

[Matteo57]

Sub'd, awesome build!

 

[alec120psi]

The AC unit needed to be modified a bit. I put a panel of fans on the front to blow across the evaporator to try and de-ice it.

I had to disable to the PCB on the AC unit in order to force it to cool below 65. I'll follow up with a schematic as soon as I find it. I plugged the AC unit into a Ranco controller. Hey and ELECTRICITY WILL KILL YOU! DON'T DO WHAT I DID. IF YOU TOUCH A CAPACITOR THAT HAS NOT BEEN DISCHARGED IT CAN KILL YOU.

What that capacitor. That'll knock you on your butt if it doesn't kill you. I let it discharge for 24 hours then grounded it and checked it with a DVM just in case. I am very afraid of electricity.

[/QUOTE]

This is similar to what I am trying to do with the ac unit. Did you ever come up with the schematics on bypassing the internal thermostat? Also, can you tell me if the small. Imputed fans are placed inside the front panel of the ac unit? I a newbie with this appliance modification and am a bit unsure as a result.

Thank you in advance for your help with this.

 

[Redbeard5289]

Awesome write up! Thank you for sharing. Going to have to build one soon...
Redbeard5289

 

[shark_sandwich]

A bit late to the gAme but I would like to build something simalar so iam in for furture reference

 

[mario_silent]

Excellent project! kind of what I'm trying to pull of but I got a question though. Does your AC unit bring your electric bill too high? I was thinking of setting one too in my small fermentation room but I was making calculations and got about 90 bucks just by the small minisplit

I wanna bring down the temp about 5 or 6 °C only maybe even less at times. Where I live is pretty cool and luckily not so hot or cold, so I'm thinking the unit wouldn't even work at night I guess

 

[ACESFULL]

Not seeing any pictures. Do you have them still? Also do you have build plans?

Thanks!

 

[Ken_McLoud]

Hey guys!

My wife Alison and I are currently working on a project that would be the perfect companion to Fermentation chamber like this.

It's called the Solidus, and its a WiFi enabled device that fits in the palm of your hand and will notify you anywhere in the world if the temperatures in your fermentation chamber are getting out of line. All with no subscription fee and an MSRP of only $50

Please consider backing our kickstarter here:
www.riotlabs.net/kickstarter

 

[MikeForan]

Is there any way to get the images restored to this thread? I'm getting broken links for all the original image posts.

 

[Pumbapoindexter]

Not getting any pictures and this would be a perfect build for my needs!!!!

 

[beernutz]

If OP is still around, you can use the skypath utility to download your images from imageshack so that they can be uploaded to a free image hosting service like photobucket.

I went through the same problem as I'd hosted images on imageshack for free for many years but then out of the blue they decided to start charging for hosting. I used Skypath to retrieve my imageshack images and put them on photobucket.

 

[jwynia]

You can get to the photos via the Wayback Machine:

https://web.archive.org/web/20150905144716/https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=159239