Thanks to
markpeace's thread I think I have the fermentation environment and drinking stock fridge system sorted in concept at least.
So from fleabay or freecycle I shall source a small fridge freezer.
The fridge is just the fridge, for keeping yeast cultures and drinkable beers and ciders. :thumb: :drink:
The freezer gets partitioned, probably vertically, with some heavy duty insulation of some kind and a big ice cube will be encouraged to form in one part. This will form the "cold store". The other bit will be for hops and ice cubes for summer drinkies.
Right next door to the fridge freezer will be the fermenting environment. A wooden cupboard, heavily insulated, and big enough for at least three 5 gallon FVs and probably more space for bottles/DJs. A tube heater provides heat and cooling is provided by a solar pump circulating glycol based anti-freeze through the "cold store" part of the freezer. Both tube heater and cooling pump can be rigged I guess to some kind of controller device with a temp probe. Gets too hot, pump runs cold fluid through, gets too cold, tube heater comes on... Can't be that simple can it?
I could also, in a future phase, add an additional heater and complete cooling loop and controller to the other end of the environment such that it could be used either as a single temp big unit or a split unit with one cool side for lagering or crash cooling and the other side at fermentation temp...
:hmm:
That sounds really simple and easy. The best of it is that if the main component of the system fails (the fridge freezer) all I have to do is source another, subdivide the freezer part, bore some holes in the side and re-plumb.