Beer Forum

I live in Lake Tahoe, CA where we experience drastic temperature swings throughout the day. I have a keg fridge for serving but I'm having a hard time with fermentation temp control and cellaring high gravity beer (like my 10-year collection of Bigfoot). Too cold in the winter, too hot in the summer. I could add another fridge for fermentation and a third for beer storage, but old fridges are inefficient and take up alot of space. I'm trying to figure out if a well-designed walk-in cooler could meet all my temp control needs. If I kept the walk-in at 40-45 F, that would be good for serving and cellaring/lagering. For fermenting ales, I'm thinking about using heat wrap on the fermenters to get the wort temp up to ale range. Does this sound viable? Any advice is appreciated.

I have been thinking along similar lines, one large freezer for doing all my fermentation in. Keep the freezer at say 40 and use heat wraps to keep the fermentation at what ever temp you need, you could fermentate ales and lagers in the same fridge. Any one tried this yet?

Imakewort wrote:I have been thinking along similar lines, one large freezer for doing all my fermentation in. Keep the freezer at say 40 and use heat wraps to keep the fermentation at what ever temp you need, you could fermentate ales and lagers in the same fridge. Any one tried this yet?

Fuck, how many times do I have to post this shit?

Here is how I can ferment and dispense from a single freezer:







I keep the freezer in the low 40's for dispensing and I can ferment at any temp I choose and stay within a degree of my target temp. Of course, each carboy requires its own temp controller, heater and neoprene parka, so this is not a particularly cheap way to go, but it works great.

Fuck, how many times do I have to post this shit?
Till every ones learns I now am using 2 chest freezers and 1 regular fridge to fermentate in, This way I could buy 1 large freezer and save a lot of space and energy. Are you able to crash them down enough to drop the yeast by turning off the heat wraps?

BeerPal wrote:Fuck, how many times do I have to post this shit?

A million times. It's a damn good idea.

Imakewort wrote:Are you able to crash them down enough to drop the yeast by turning off the heat wraps?

I have never done so but I don't see why you couldn't.

Sweet idea. Does keeping the CO2 tank in the bucket help keep it from tipping? If so, is the bucket filled with sand/marbles, etc?

mRandolph wrote:Sweet idea. Does keeping the CO2 tank in the bucket help keep it from tipping? If so, is the bucket filled with sand/marbles, etc?

No, I initially had the tank in the bucket to keep it from leaving rust stains on the bottom of the freezer compartment. I have since added a collar to the freezer and moved the tank outside when I did that.