Multi-Temp chest freezer

[AllanMar]

Hey,

I've seen alot of talk around the net about doing this, without too much feedback on them.

I got a good size chest freezer off kijiji primarily to use as a fermentation chamber, however since I only have a mini fridge kegerator ideally I would like somewhere I can cold condition/carbonate my kegs so they're ready to go when they hit the kegerator. I don't really have any more room for a larger kegerator or another chest freezer/fridge. What I was thinking was building an insulated box around a bucket/carboy and put a fermwrap and seperate controller on it. Keep the fridge at 2-4 deg C and have the ferm wrap maintain the warmer fermentation temps. I suspect I might be best to make up a SS thermowell to measure the temp inside the fementor directly.

Anyone on here have any first hand experience doing this? How did it work out?

[jason.loxton]

That's pretty much what I am doing. If you only want to ferment a single carboy, you can use the ferm wrap and a STC-1000 controller to control it and freezer. Watch out for condensation though. Damp rid for sure. My ferm wrap is homemade and the connections are a bit sketchy. From images I have seen online it isn't clear to me that the commercial ones are any more compatible with moisture. I hammered shut the end of a 'out' dip tube on a keg for my thermowell.

[AllanMar]

How did you insulate your fermenter? Not sure how I could get away with only one STC-1000 as I'd need one to keep the freezer at 2-4deg and a second to run the fermwrap to keep the fermenter at whatever ferm temp I need.

I'm a big fan of DampRid also, although I've got adhesive lined heatshrink I use to make moisture proof connections.

[jason.loxton]

I am still playing with things, but I haven't insulated my fermenter. My experience was that the freezer and carboy glass end up dropping well below the temp. nec. to offset heat produced by fermentation. I tried without a ferm wrap and the problem was that the surroundings had cooled such that even after the freezer stopped operating, the chilled environment continued to bring the carboy's temp down, leading to major swings. A ferm wrap should stabilize that: it doesn't matter if the environment is swinging down low, so long at the fermenter is being be heated to offset those swings. This is somewhat theoretical right now, as my STC-1000 ended up being the 240V (duh!). Getting a new one off of Dave soon.

[AllanMar]

Im starting to think were talking about two different things.

What i'm talking about is keeping my chest freezer at serving or lagering temps (for kegs/lagers). Then insulating a fermenter (and adding a ferm wrap) to warm the fermenter so that while ive got the freezer at ~3deg C, I can also have a fermenter at 17-18deg. Its somewhat inefficient, but I dont think it would matter much in the grand scheme of things. Im looking to have two temperatures in one freezer.

[mr x]

Should work, but i think i'd do lagers.

[jason.loxton]

Ahhhhh. Yeah. We were talking about different things. That should work. I agree with Mr X though.