Serving beer, and fermenting ale, in the same fridge

[smokkin]

another question. I currently have a full sized fridge / kegerator, with a ranco temp controller, for my fermentation and then for serving. I want to serve at 38 degrees, but I still have SOOO much room left to be fermenting more beer. im thinking about letting the fridge do it's own temp control (cold is good enough for serving), and using the temp controller and a fermwrap heater on my fermenter, with a sweater or 2 on it for insulation. Any ideas? Will this work my *really* old fridge too hard?

[macgruffus]

I'm betting "yes." If you have a heater in the fridge itself the fridge will be running full time.

Use the extra space to cold crash your ales or to lager.

[Sent From My iPhone]

This is what I do, for now. I use an analog controller on the chest freezer set to 38 and the temp swings from about 36 to 41. I use a Fermwrap with a digital controller set to 50 to ferment lagers in the chest freezer. So far so good.

[Mylo]

This same concept came up a little while ago. I just seem to have a fundamental opposition to lining the pockets of my electrical company while my beer fights it out in my chest freezer.

Then I got to thinking about how I can ferment ale, serve, and lager with the minimum amount of refridgeration. I didn't figure out one solution for all three - but I did manage to figure out one for two zones.

I plan on building a well insulated box on top of my chest freezer. The top will have "side-by-side" doors that swing open like a cabinet. The bottom of the box on top will have to "trap doors" to access the freezer compartment. I will then use a comple of rancos (or maybe brewdroids... one day) to control a fan that will draw cold air up into the top, (ie. fermentation) box. The bottom will be reserved for serving. If I needed to do a lager - I could set the top box for 50, and the bottom for 30.


Mylo

[Thirsty Boy]

What you suggest is exactly how I control my fermentation temperatures all the time.

I use an aquarium heater submersed in the wort rather than a fermwrap, I think they are more efficient and less likely to leak heat into the fridge.

I wrap the fermentor up in camping mat insulation to minimise heat transfer. It works particularly well and I control my temperatures very accurately.

The fridge does work a bit harder, but only maybe 20%. The better you insulate the fermentor, the less the fridge will have to work. But remember, if its too well insulated, the fridge wont be able to control the heat from a rampant fermentation, so maybe just light insulation for the first couple of days, then wrap it up to save energy.

When I ferment lagers this way ... the fridge hardly runs any extra time.

I can ferment a lager and an ale and serve beer out of the same fridge, all at the same time... and the freezer section still freezes for Hop/yeast/etc storage.

Search some of my past posts (in this thread I think) I have posted a detailed explanation and pictures.

Thirsty