Newbie question on fermentation temperature control - old fridge freezer or diy celotex unit

[DanDCBorder]

Hi, I'm hopefully going to try some kitchentop BIAB small batch 1 gallon brewing to see if it whets my appetite. I don't have much room in the house so fermenting will have to take place in the garage.

In the garage I have an old fridge freezer where the top part is a fridge and will take a fermentation vessel, but the fridge part cannot be isolated from the freezer. I know chest freezers or under counter fridges are better but I'm trying to use what I've got in the garage!

I also have enough 50mm celotex to build some sort of insulation unit for the fermentation vessel.

I took some min/max temperature readings from the switched off fridge compartment over the past few 'cold' days. The minimum was 6.9 degrees and the maximum was 17.2 degrees. Based on this I have a couple of questions!

1. If I used the fridge freezer and based on those temps, I assume I would be predominantly heating up rather than cooling down. If I simply relied on heating via some sort of bulb/inkbird type affair, would it's natural cooling be enough when switched off i.e. would I actually need the fridge (freezer) switched on to bring the temp down quicker?

2. Am I better building something separate to the fridge/freezer with the Celotex? Or make the fridge more insulative with the Celotex?

That's it for now!

Thanks

Dan

 

[crowcrow]

What are you looking to brew? If you are looking at ale temps (18c ish) then looks like all you will need is the heater, at least at this time of year. I'd go for a short (12 inch) tube heater from screwfix or similar. Will be safer than a bulb.

If looking for lager temps then you might need to run the fridge.

 

[DanDCBorder]

Thanks crowcrow, it would be ales in the first instance. Good to know I can potentially just rely on the tube heater.

 

[RoomWithABrew]

Dan
I use a fridge freezer as my ferment fridge, it has a freezer on the top. The fridge had a problem with the thermostat so would only chill to as cold as it could get.
Not a problem as I fitted an STC 1000 to it to turn the cooling ( the fridge) and the heating ( a heatbelt) on and off.
The heater is used more often if it's a really hot ferment such as kveik. Otherwise for a say 18 C ferment the cooling kicks in and out.
After a while I cut a hole in the bottom of the freezer so that the cold air ( freezer is fan assisted) via some ducting could be piped directly into the fridge.
I've insulated inside the freezer so that the chilling aspect of freezer and fan is isolated from the rest of the compartment.
Now the ferment fridge is really fast at cooling when needed. Bringing 25 litres from 25 to 4 in less than 24 hours. The disk of foam I keep in the freezer so that I can block up the freezer part if I know I'm not chilling for a while with a hot ferment.

 

[DanDCBorder]

Thanks for this and for the STC 1000s reference. They seem cheap enough, looks like a good alternative to the Inkbird.

 

[DavidDetroit]

It sounds like you're trying to do a lager first? I'd consider just starting with an ale. For the time being, meaning at this stage of the game, temperature control isn't something to worry about. That is, unless you have an unviable room temperature.
Down the line, when refining the brew process, look into it.
And you can do a "warm lager" and still get really good results. Plus you can do some ales that aren't that much different than lagers, relatively speaking.