FV cabinet build.

[Scorrie]

I've been bashing away in the byre attempting to build an FV cabinet out of (mainly) what I have lying around.

I had two redundant metal shelving sets and a quantity of roofing ply, so I reckoned I had the basis for a cabinet.

The shelving sets were only just over 300mm deep - not deep enough for your average FV at around 350mm dia - so I had to bolt one unit to the back of the other to give a decent depth. The shelving is spaced so that the lower shelf sits as high as possible from the soon-to-be-fitted 120w tube heater. This lower shelf should be big enough to fit two 5gal poly barrels and a couple of demijohns.

By doing a bit of careful measuring, I sussed out that if I had the bottem shelf set so it would just sit the barrels in nicely, the top shelf would be plenty big enough for a 33ltr FV and a 25 ltr FV with airlocks sticking out of the top. Unfortunately, it's not wide enough for 2x 33ltr FV's side by side, but will fit the above combination in a staggered formation plus 2 more demijohns or the 15ltr 'Oxfam' buckets.

I've just taken delivery of the silver bubble insulation and have the tube heater and STC1000 ready to wire in. I'm hoping the 120w heater will be OK for this fairly large-ish space, but if not - then I've plenty of space to slap in another one next to it.

Here's a picture of a wood and metal box:

 

[aneray]

Nice one :thumb: .

I really enjoy making something out of bits and bobs, the end result gives more satisfaction. Making a fermenting cupboard as large as yours has now got me thinking. I haven't brewed anything for a while now due to the temperatures, and now that I have a decent sized brewing shed I'm sure I can fill some space with one.

Post us all some more pics up when its completed, it looks the business already. :clap:

 

[mixale]

I'm not sure silver bubblewrap will give you the level of insulation you need.
50cm kingspan / cellotex is a far better option.
Although my cabinet only has 25cm the inside temp was holding 20c over the past week even when water was freezing inside the garage!
See my cabinet here

 

[Muddydisco]

Mixale I hope you have your dimensions wrong you surely me "mm" not "cm"
Me too would be a +1 for some Celotex

 

[Scorrie]

Aye, I've got a 'plan' in place regarding the insulation.

It's an absolute pig getting stuff up here, the nearest builders merchants are on mainland (Shetland) which is a ferry ride and a 80 mile round trip - so I tend to order anything I haven't got online....

So if (which I also suspect) the insulation isn't up to the job, then I'll order some 25mm polystyrene sheeting off ebay and beef it up with that. But you never know, I may come up with something local yet. Plenty of sheep up here.... :whistle:

 

[Scorrie]

Stuff it, why mess about with it - just ordered the polystyrene sheets off Fleabay. :thumb:

 

[Mark1964]

you want kingspan wall insulation

thats the inside of our fermenting cupboard

 

[Vossy1]

I used Kingspan in my first build but for the larger cupboard I've just made I've used Jablite from B&Q which is probably the same as poly sheeting. I would have used KS but it would have been too expensive for the amount I needed

 

[Titch]

google sheffield insulations

they stock all the kingspan in various sizes

 

[Vossy1]

But you never know, I may come up with something local yet. Plenty of sheep up here....

Compressed wool is a very good insulator...you'll have to catch the sheep 1st though :lol:

 

[Hawks]

Plenty of sheep up here.... :whistle:

If you can get the wool - that's a great plan :thumb:

 

[crofty83]

you want kingspan wall insulation

thats the inside of our fermenting cupboard

How much heat do single 1ft tube heaters put out?

I was going to build a single FV heating cabinet with an Electrim 75 immersion heater but now the missus wants to start doing wine too I'm thinking a bigger cabinet would be better then I could put the FV for the beer & wine in there along with the keg for the secondary fermentation and the demijohns.

Just wondering how many 1ft tube heaters I would need. The cabinet would probably be the same size as the OP's I recon

 

[Mark1964]

A 60 watt tube heater is fine. The one in the picture is rigged up to a TC 10 along with a cellar beer chiller for fermentation it works great and keeps temp accurate

 

[Scorrie]

Getting there slowly.

I got the polystyrene sheeting (25mm) delivered last week so have started to line out the interior prior to putting the foil insulation in. I've still to fit poly to the doors and odd little bits - but it's starting to look summat like now.

The wooden shelves are just pine lats off our old bed, they're not going to be fixed in permanantly, that way I can shuffle them around to enable me to drop the contents of the FV (top shelf) into a barrel on the bottom shelf without moving the FV so that the tap has to sit 'outside' the cabinet (if that makes sense). Also the lats will enable better warm air circulation.... I think....

Plenty of space in the bottom for a second pipe heater, should I need it.

 

[Cyclops]

Could have just bought a fridge, lol

 

[Scorrie]

Could have just bought a fridge, lol

If you can find one that's 150cm high by 85cm wide and 60cm deep, on Shetland, and cheap, let me know and I'll buy it.... :grin:

 

[crofty83]

Here's mine finally finished

The cabinet (fridge) on its own

The cabinet (fridge) with the FV inside and the temp sensor taped to the side on the FV

 

[Scorrie]

Well, been a bit of a gap due to a trapped nerve rendering my left arm useless for the past few weeks but finally finished!

Rigged up the STC1000 to the 120w tube heater and found that with an ambient temp of around 12C in the byre it was struggling to maintain 20C - so a second 120w tube heater arrived to keep the first one company. Job sorted.

A few figures and thoughts for anyone thinking of doing the same:

The internal area is approx 150cm high by 85cm wide by 60cm deep.

It is lined with 1 layer of 25mm polystyrene sheet and one layer of double sided foil bubble insulation.

2X 120w tube heaters.

With an ambient temperature of 7c today, it took the heaters just over 15min to get up to 20C.

Heaters programmed to cutout at 20.5C, but temperature continued to rise to 21.8C due to energy already released by heaters prior to shutdown.

Took 9 mins for temperature to fall back to 20C (heater cut in point) - temp continued to fall to 17C whilst heaters were warming up and then took about 4min to get back to 20C.

Tube heaters from here: http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll? ... 145wt_1270
Foil insulation from here: http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll? ... 715wt_1270
Polystyrene sheeting from here: http://stores.ebay.co.uk/MR-POLYSTYRENE ... 34.c0.m322

You may be able to source cheaper in the UK, I used the above suppliers as they worked out the cheapest including carriage to Shetland.

:

 

[stu brew]

Here's my attempt so far

First I brought a cheep shed from b & q then I plied it out with 22 mm ply and sliconed and taped all the joints then covered the inside with foil insertion iv still got to do the door and I'm fitting two stat one for a fan heater and one for cooler so I can keep it with in 1 degree then it's going two fit two 220 l fv the rest of the garge is being cleared over the next two weeks but so far I'm happy ;-)

 

[Mark1964]

looks good youve done a nice job :clap: :thumb: