I know this site is predominately beer but i also make mead. Im trying to find a good system to have a fermentation chamber around 65 F, a place to cold crash if needed around 34F (may use my keezer but space is so limited), and a conditioning chamber for the bottles. Has anyone else tackled this issue and if so how did you go about fixing it? Love to hear descriptions and would appreciate pics of your set up. Tha ks!
A lot of folks use an inexpensive chest freezer and a temperature controller — like this one from Inkbird — to set up a fairly low-cost fermentation chamber.
Yeah but then I’ll have three chest freezer going at once? Anybody use an upright fridge or freezer? Maybe a standard fridge with a mod to the freezer or fridge?
I’ve been using Danby 11.0 cu. ft. Apartment Size Fridge in Black - DAR110A3MDB | Danby USA for over 10 years. Mostly as a fermentation chamber for a Blichmann 14 gal, but I’ve also been known to use it for bottle conditioning as well. I use an Inkbird ITC-308 WiFi thermostat (allows me to control temperature will traveling). Heat source is a 60 watt incandescent light bulb inside a paint can. Note that I’ve tossed or cut away much of the interior pieces of the refrigerator.
as long as you get it to the right temperature…. I hacked a cornelius maxi chiller, inserting a stc1000 controller + probe into the water bath. With a bit of glycol, they can go surprisingly low. If you have a fermenter with a coil + insulation, that can get you comfortably there too.
I inherited an older bottom freezer fridge and loved using it as ferment chamber. Once the fermenter was in the fridge it was easy to take samples and view what was going on, at least in my PET fermenters. Transfers into kegs on the ground was easy, too. I cranked the fridge’s temp control all the way down and then controlled temp with an Inkbird. The only downfall which you get with any fridge/freezer combo is the freezer becomes, for the most part, useless due the fact that it only cools when the fridge is calling for cooling. The fridge died a while ago and now I’m back using my chest freezer/keezer/fermentation chamber/overflow grocery holder. Which is a big PIA.
I use an old old fridge with a controller. It works perfect and can put 2 fermenters in at a time if I do a double brew day!
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