Fermentation Fridge Build

[Yase]

So after running my first ferment in the dining room, as the shed was getting way too hot, i decided to have a crack at building a ferment chamber as the smell was ok at first but after 10 days was getting a bit much for the family and it was a pain in the ass carrying the fermenters back to the shed. At first i was looking at using cool room paneling and a small bar fridge but would have cost too much money and time. I found a build on a beer forum that used a side by side fridge/freezer and after taking a few measurements to make sure it could house my 4 x 30L fermenters i went looking on trusty gumtree and found a 7 year old Maytag for $80 that had issues with maintaining temp, meaning a faulty thermistor or controller. This was perfect as i was planning on using a STC-1000 anyway.

Fridge with shelves and drawers removed (controller temporarily removed for investigation)

20170327_090202.jpg

20170327_090208.jpg

Cut plastic liner with sharp stanley knife both sides

20170327_095640.jpg

Removed foam by hand exposing the "freshness" control pipes, which were cut back

20170327_101620.jpg

[Yase]

Cut hole in door with a dremel for the STC-1000 and wired the supply, cool and heat circuits.

20170327_151137.jpg

20170327_151156.jpg

Bought an 80W tubular greenhouse heater off gumtree and wired in a spare 120mm PC fan i had lying around to disperse the heat. Also bolted some 50x50 aluminium angle through the side of the fridge for shelf supports to which i fixed some melamine board.

20170330_134444.jpg

Finished fermentation chamber with my second ever batch of McWhisky bubbling away happily at 29-30deg and a few extra supports for good measure :handgestures-thumbupleft:

20170331_120324.jpg

All said and done the build went really well, although there were some worrying times when cutting and drilling into the walls, and is nice to know i can ferment all year round day/night at 30 degrees :D

[Fishleg]

Pretty Shmick mate! Good job

[Doubleuj]

:happy-partydance: awesome work, can I suggest eventually replacing the melamine with ply or something, if the melamine gets wet it'll fail and down comes your fermenters

[copperhead road]

Looks sweet as mate, and you can run your still site all year round!

[Lowie]

:handgestures-thumbupleft:

[bluc]

Great work yase :handgestures-thumbupleft: Im with doubleuj ply will be a much more reliable shelf especially if one of the fermenters puke..

[Clickeral]

I would personally look at dropping your fermenting temp down depending on what Yeast your using.

When I use my Fermenting fridge I sit between 10-18C depending on what I am making

Rum never gets temp controlled as the hotter the better :p

[Yase]

Will get a sheet of marine ply to change over, thanks for the suggestion. Using the mcwhisky recipe from the forum which uses bakers yeast. From what i have read bakers yeast likes the 30 degree temp. please correct me if i'm wrong.

[Kenster]

yase, Noice build bud... I think the Bakers 'likes' 30 ish and will tolerate that temp quite nicely, however, the lower the temp the less congeners and off flavours are generated...& stresses the yeast less... i try for low 20s after the initial eruption.

[Yase]

thanks kenster, this ferment seems to have almost finished after 3 days. Ill run the next one as suggested :handgestures-thumbupleft:

[Yase]

Just bumped the temp down to 24 deg for the rest of the ferment. Not running till the weekend anyway.

[Sam.]

yase, Noice build bud... I think the Bakers 'likes' 30 ish and will tolerate that temp quite nicely, however, the lower the temp the less congeners and off flavours are generated...& stresses the yeast less... i try for low 20s after the initial eruption.

For whisky more congeners can be a benefit if you are going to age the product ;-)

[Psykamaholik]

Mate that looks bloody amazing! :handgestures-thumbupleft:

You've set the benchmark for my next fermentation fridge!

I have mine set to 25*C with 2*C tolerance each way

[Lowie]

That's a great fermenting fridge Yase. Mines pretty basic (fridge bottom, freezer top) and includes two stc controllers, one for the fridge and one for the freezer (which I us in the winter to age my beer). For those of use electrically challenged, are you able to post a diagram of your wiring as it looks pretty shmick? Cheers.

[Yase]

Not too difficult. Only mod i did on the fridge control system was disconnect the supply to the fridge damper motor, now that it's one chamber this is not required. Ran 2 x 3 core flexible cables from the STC-1000 to the back of the fridge near the compressor though the floor of the freezer area, 1 for STC-1000 supply and 1 for STC-1000 "cool". Cut the incoming fridge supply flexible cable halfway between where it enters the fridge and the "supply in" connector at the compressor area. Joined the STC-1000 power supply flex to the outgoing cut flex that has the 10A plug on it. Joined the other "cool" flex to the cut flex going to the fridge "supply in" connector. Ran a STC-1000 "heat" 3 core flex to a double power point on a mounting block at the bottom of the fridge area so i could plug in a 12V transformer for the PC fan and plug in the Greenhouse heater.

I just used standard electrical double screw "blue point" connectors for cable joining.

A few IMPORTANT notes to consider

-make sure you earth anything extra that you install that has a metal chassis.
-use caution when drilling or cutting though walls of the fridge because if you hit a gas line the fridge will be useless.
-make sure there are no sharp edges where cables pass though cut or drilled holes.

Wiring.jpg

[Lowie]

Not too difficult. Only mod i did on the fridge control system was disconnect the supply to the fridge damper motor, now that it's one chamber this is not required. Ran 2 x 3 core flexible cables from the STC-1000 to the back of the fridge near the compressor though the floor of the freezer area, 1 for STC-1000 supply and 1 for STC-1000 "cool". Cut the incoming fridge supply flexible cable halfway between where it enters the fridge and the "supply in" connector at the compressor area. Joined the STC-1000 power supply flex to the outgoing cut flex that has the 10A plug on it. Joined the other "cool" flex to the cut flex going to the fridge "supply in" connector. Ran a STC-1000 "heat" 3 core flex to a double power point on a mounting block at the bottom of the fridge area so i could plug in a 12V transformer for the PC fan and plug in the Greenhouse heater.

I just used standard electrical double screw "blue point" connectors for cable joining.

A few IMPORTANT notes to consider

-make sure you earth anything extra that you install that has a metal chassis.
-use caution when drilling or cutting though walls of the fridge because if you hit a gas line the fridge will be useless.
-make sure there are no sharp edges where cables pass though cut or drilled holes.

Cheers mate, good post.

Wiring.jpg