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Category: Gear
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After just a couple of batches I started thinking about how to control my temperatures.  Had my eyes on a couple of clone recipes that are temperature specific.  Luckily a few months later my fridge seemed to be starting to give out. Making a burning smell - which turned out to be plastic overheating from the door being left open and light left on. So, since we had a new fridge on the way, I looked at using the old one for fermentation. 

First thing I did was gut the inside. Shelves out, inside door panels removed, and a good cleaning.  So I am sitting here with it running, feel the freezer getting cold, and the fridge getting cooler. Start thinking. If I am not going to use the freezer, why not eliminate it.  What I did was this - cut two holes from fridge to freezer, to allow air to circulate better than through the one small existing vent.  Next, I built some baffles, to allow it to channel the cooled air more directly to the fridge chamber.   Essentially forcing it to pass through the fridge, rather than cooling the freezer.

I also needed heat.  Since I brew in the basement, and the temperature ranges between 64 and 75, a very good part of the year I need heat for regular ale fermentation.  I picked up a small space heater.  The Lasko #100 MyHeat works great for this for a few reasons. First, it is a low wattage so it isn't going to heat up really fast.  Second it has a temperature cutoff so if by some chance your controller doesn't turn off, it will shut itself off before it gets too hot.  And finally, the thing is tiny so it is real easy to fit it in

 

Here you can see the baffle in the freezer, with the front piece taken off.  Cold air coming out the top then flowing down, warmer air coming up on the left and drawn in to be cooled. More to come soon

INside view of freezer with baffle installed

 

Update:  Have the first brew running in this now, and wow what a difference.  Before I had to fight to keep it within a 5 or 6 degree temperature range.  This time, I have kept within a half degree of my target.   One minor problem - and of course the day after I flew across the country.  I had some kind of power issue at home and lost communication between the server and arduino. The arduino came back up and was holding the temperature perfectly, so all I lost was the logging and ability to make changes.   I had this system up and running for months, and had several outages, but this is the first time an outage caused an issue.

 

Full build pictures coming soon