Where do you ferment?

[thelema5]

My cider making hobby started out innocently enough, with a gallon jug and an airlock. As you know we tend to accumulate more and more equipment over time, and I recently realized that my den was being taken over by carboys, ciders in various stages of aging, scales, funnels, buckets, corkers, you name it.

So I decided to wrap up my various projects, bottled what I had on deck, and bit the bullet to move my hobby to it's proper place- the cellar.

I mean, I'm not using it for anything... and it stays cool enough down there in the summer to allow for year-round fermenting! It was the perfect solution except...

My cellar... was a place of ill-repute. Dank, musty, filthy. It was filthy when we bought the house 13 years ago, and we could never steel our nerves enough to deal with it. I mean, we practically never go down there unless a breaker needs to be reset, anyway. For years, my cellar was feared by all, regarded with superstition like a moldering dungeon housing untold hoards of mutant spiders.

In the name of cider, I decided to tackle the beast. Over the course of two weekends I removed several cubic yards of trash and debris; swept, dusted, mopped, and disinfected the whole space. Killed a race of mutant spiders. Dusted, mopped and sanitized again. Until...

Here's my new cider cellar, before and after:

It's not much, but it beats fighting for space upstairs with all the usual family creature comforts and household furnishings. It's nice to be able to stretch out.

This got me thinking, though- where do you folks do your fermenting?

 

[Hoppy2bmerry]

Nice that you have shelf space without building/buying shelving! Looks great. I generally work in my kitchen. I have an antique stove where 3 gallon carboys and some buckets fit underneath. Though today I put a 6.5 gallon fermentor out in a counter height fridge in the garage for my first lager.

 

[FloppyKnockers]

Sweep all you want. That cellar is still creepy as ****.



Good job though. I wish I had a room that had a stable temp all year around.

 

[CA_Mouse]

Wish I had a basement to utilize!

 

[thelema5]

Nice that you have shelf space without building/buying shelving!

Right? I still have no idea why they were built in to the foundation, but they serve my needs perfectly.

I'd love an antique stove- that tin tile is awesome.

Good luck with that lager- 6.5 gallons is a pretty big investment!

 

[thelema5]

Wish I had a basement to utilize!

I've still got plenty of space if you want to "store" some brew over here. It totally won't disappear a few mugs at a time.

 

[Stillraining]

Id snuff FloppyNockers for ya for that cellar!

 

[potseeslc]

I have a brewpi fridge in the basement

View attachment 1466139380263.jpg

 

[thelema5]

I have a brewpi fridge in the basement

Awesome!

 

[CA_Mouse]

I've still got plenty of space if you want to "store" some brew over here. It totally won't disappear a few mugs at a time.

I have plenty of fermenting space... I need more keg space!

 

[Maylar]

I brew in the kitchen. A clean sink with running water is necessary for this hobby, and my cellar doesn't have one.

A 6 gal bucket fits under the kitchen table...

Dining room for secondary...

... ageing cider in my office...

Mini keggerator in the spare bedroom...

Yes, I'm single.

I'm looking for a new house now, and a "brew room" is part of my criteria.

 

[Hoppy2bmerry]

Right? I still have no idea why they were built in to the foundation, but they serve my needs perfectly.

I'd love an antique stove- that tin tile is awesome.

Good luck with that lager- 6.5 gallons is a pretty big investment!

Thanks for the feedback and the good luck wishes. The fermentor is 6.5 the beer is 5.25, but yeah big enough not to want to mess up. The stove is wonderful for those of us who can cook without bells and whistles it's not 1800s old more like 1920s. A couple companies make replicas but they just don't "feel" right. Maybe I should start a thread. Anyway if you are in New England I could recomend a not so well advertised source that won't rip you off.
Back on topic... I do have a couple gallons of cider and a Cyser under the stove to bottle up.

 

[mongoose33]

My basement runs around 64-65 degrees, so that's where I've been doing fermenting. Now that my Keezer is done I'll dedicate the refrigerator in which I kept kegs (on picnic taps) to a fermentation chamber, but I'm sure I'll still use the unadorned basement floor.

 

[laredo7mm]

Ugh, I hear ya on the basement clean out. I did that on Memorial Day week. Almost filled a 20 yard dumpster with all the crap I threw out. That was cleaning up 10 years worth of old projects and being a pack rat.

Last winter I would use my whole house as a fermentation chamber, but I knew that wouldn't work well in the summer. Even with the AC on, my house is 74° and the basement warms up to about 68°. Not to mention it was a pain in the rear to constantly be moving carboys around and changing the house temp to regulate the ferm temp.

So I built a fermentation chamber / keggerator with Brewpi controls. The top is the fermentation chamber and the bottom is the kegerator that holds 5 Corney kegs. Taps are behind the upper small door on the left (not installed yet in the first pic). They are on a drawer that slides out.

Theses pictures are a couple months old, it still looks the same, but I have cleaned up a bit now so no more boxes and cardboard underneath, plus it has 10 gallons of beer in the ferm chamber and 4 kegs down below.

 

[thelema5]

Yes, I'm single..

That was my first thought. Looks like quite the spread!

 

[thelema5]

. So I built a fermentation chamber / keggerator with Brewpi controls.

That's one handsome rig!

 

[Maylar]

So I built a fermentation chamber / keggerator with Brewpi controls. The top is the fermentation chamber and the bottom is the kegerator that holds 5 Corney kegs. Taps are behind the upper small door on the left (not installed yet in the first pic). They are on a drawer that slides out.

As a fellow woodworker, I salute you.

 

[Aristotelian]

Sweep all you want. That cellar is still creepy as ****.



Good job though. I wish I had a room that had a stable temp all year around.

Yep. Those jars of cider could just as easily contain body parts in formaldehyde. No way you are getting me to go down there. You may have some 10 year old dry hopped hand pressed Honeycrisp cider down there but you are going to have to bring it up stairs if you want me to try it.

 

[buMbLeB]

Theses pictures are a couple months old, it still looks the same, but I have cleaned up a bit now so no more boxes and cardboard underneath, plus it has 10 gallons of beer in the ferm chamber and 4 kegs down below.

I am so imprelly*!


*Just coined it, see if you can reverse engineer.

 

[bembel]

Jelly for jealous with impressive as a disclaimer prefix?

 

[dstockwell]

Son got married so I took over some closet space.

 

[buMbLeB]

Jelly for jealous with impressive as a disclaimer prefix?

"Impressed" actually, but very good, cookie for you!

 

[kayserinakliyat]

Sweep all you want

 

[MindenMan]

I ferment in a 7 cu. ft. freezer with a STC-1000 controller I built; currently (permanently) in my garage.

 

[starsealsseo]

Place the cucumbers, dill, garlic and spices in your fermentation jar and sprinkle a bit of sea salt as you go along. Prepare a brine of 5 tablespoons sea salt to 8 cups water, making sure to stir well to dissolve the salt, and fill the fermentation jar with the brine so it covers the cucumbers.

 

[1bottlerocket]

I use my cellar for fermenting but for all the racking and cleaning the work is done in the kitchen and bathroom.