Let the Internet of Things get brewing......
Like many of us, I always need more space to keep up with my ferments, especially now that cider season is at peak. I like to ferment at 50F, and now that the temps are in the low 30s-40s each night, I can use that cool night air to help keep things chill.
I enclosed a corner of my basement with 1 inch foam board and plywood to make a 6' x 7' x 8' fermentation "cooler" with a door and have a pair of heavy duty shelves that I keep all my 5 gallon carboys on as well as a few larger Speidel fermentors. I hooked up an Inkbird temp controller to a 4" inline duct fan installed in a short length of duct that pulls in fresh air from outside, like a reverse dryer duct, and this empties into the middle of this make-shift walk in cooler.
So this is great at night, the temps are low and the fan brings in the cooler air and then shuts on and off to keep things at 50F, BUT but in the day it still regularly gets above 50F so if its plugged in, and the temp goes above 50, the fan still turns on and I am actually warming my space not cooling it.
Enter WeMo and IFTTT. I plug the Inkbird into a WeMo switch, and made a simple recipe on IFTTT using the Weather channel that toggles the power on and off to the inkbird as the outside temp crosses the 50F threshold.
Inline duct fan, $20
WeMo Switch, $39
300+ cubic feet of automated temp control from Nov-April.
Like many of us, I always need more space to keep up with my ferments, especially now that cider season is at peak. I like to ferment at 50F, and now that the temps are in the low 30s-40s each night, I can use that cool night air to help keep things chill.
I enclosed a corner of my basement with 1 inch foam board and plywood to make a 6' x 7' x 8' fermentation "cooler" with a door and have a pair of heavy duty shelves that I keep all my 5 gallon carboys on as well as a few larger Speidel fermentors. I hooked up an Inkbird temp controller to a 4" inline duct fan installed in a short length of duct that pulls in fresh air from outside, like a reverse dryer duct, and this empties into the middle of this make-shift walk in cooler.
So this is great at night, the temps are low and the fan brings in the cooler air and then shuts on and off to keep things at 50F, BUT but in the day it still regularly gets above 50F so if its plugged in, and the temp goes above 50, the fan still turns on and I am actually warming my space not cooling it.
Enter WeMo and IFTTT. I plug the Inkbird into a WeMo switch, and made a simple recipe on IFTTT using the Weather channel that toggles the power on and off to the inkbird as the outside temp crosses the 50F threshold.
Inline duct fan, $20
WeMo Switch, $39
300+ cubic feet of automated temp control from Nov-April.
