do-it-all space for fermenting, serving and cellaring

[Imakewort]

what is the lowest temp you have run the freezer at and the carboys temp remained stable, or widest temp differential

[BeerPal]

what is the lowest temp you have run the freezer at and the carboys temp remained stable, or widest temp differential

Well, I don't use the freezer for fermenting much anymore, having gone to a conical and dedicated fermentation fridge, but I always keep the freezer at 42° and generally fermented my ales at 68°. So that's a 26° differential. Using the setup pictured, my carboys never varied from the set point by more than a degree.

[Thirsty Boy]

I do essentialy the same thing as Beerpal - I run a normal uncontrolled fridge, which serves a keg or two, has a freezer section for my hops, stores some bottled beer - and is my fermenting fridge too.

Instead of heat wraps - I use Immersible aquarium heaters, directly in the wort. They have their own temperature control built in, so I only need an external controller when I am fermenting a beer at lower than their control range (less than 18°C) - the fermeters get well wrapped in a foam camping mat for insulation.

I'm just using this sort of aquarium heater (not this particular brand though) 100W version - cheap off e-bay, and it does the job well, keeping a nice steady temperature either under its own control or set to flat out and controlled by an external unit. There are lots of differenet types, including fancy stainless ones with their own external controllers. But these ones are good enough for me.


And here is a picture of my multi purpose fridge


two different beers in there fermenting at two different temperatures (one a kolsch on 16 and the other a lager on about 10) fridge set to about 4°C and a bunch of bottled beer crowded around. You can see from the shank, that this fridge also does kegs. I have a different shelf arrangement now and I can ferment two beers at once, and store two kegs, one serving and the other lagering - plus room for a few (not many) bottles - and all the while the freezer compartment works normally and stores my hops etc

TB

[brewtoomuch]

Are there any concerns about sanatization? How do you seal the carboys or buckets with this inside it?

[Thirsty Boy]

I don't seal them in any way that looks for airtightness - if you look closely at the pictures you will see that one of my fermenters has nothing more than a piece of plastic clingfilm over the top, held on with a big rubber band - the cord from the heater just runs out the top (cling film goes over it too) held in place by the same rubber band.

Although the fermenter at the bottom has a lid on it - it hasn't got its o'ring in place (that is serving as the rubber band on the top fermenter) so its not sealed in any way. That would be one of the last times I bothered with a lid at all.

If you are more concerned by airtightness than me -- you can run the cord through a double holed stopper, seal up the gap with food grade silicon. Then you can bung your carboy up to your hearts content.

As for the heaters themselves - I have pulled off the black plastic "cap" because it serves no purpose and provides a place for gunk to build up. The unit is sealed with a silicon bung under the cap. I soak em in starsan before they go in the fermenter - no infections so far and I have been using these for about 100 brews.