Fermentation chamber

[JIGSAW Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close JIGSAW]

Wait - wouldn't an electric blanket work just wonderfully? I think I might just happen to have an old one in a cupboard somewhere... It's 75W, with adjustable settings!

Yes it would ... I made a post about it somewhere on these forums ... could even be this thread

Its how they heat fermenters outside a Ferm-chamber ....

Fast Forward to 2min ...

EDIT: @Toxxyc He also does a STC wiring at about 18min in that might help you since you got it wrong the 1st time

[JIGSAW Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close JIGSAW]

Yes, and the STC will handle 75W with no worries.

Whats the max it can handle before you have to start using alternative replays? ... I cant remember that info.

I know the guy from video above does a very neat control box with relays and extras ... might get my answer there

[groenspookasem Banned Find all posts View Profile Close groenspookasem]

Get 1 meter of 15mm copper pipe, an end cap and a brass connector from Builders. Build a tube that can bolt into your container lid. the copper is safe for beer and it will create a solid seal. just remember to use lead free solder to solder your joints.
I use this with all my mods on my system.

Using copper in the fermenter; the copper will continue to dissolve into solution as fast or faster than the yeast can consume it. Sulfates in the water will bind with the copper producing copper sulfate, a poison. The duration of contact time is the issue, short periods are fine, week long fermentation not so much

[jakeslouw Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close jakeslouw]

Using copper in the fermenter; the copper will continue to dissolve into solution as fast or faster than the yeast can consume it. Sulfates in the water will bind with the copper producing copper sulfate, a poison. The duration of contact time is the issue, short periods are fine, week long fermentation not so much

agreed

copper in beer for extended periods is not good

[Toxxyc Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Toxxyc]

Whats the max it can handle before you have to start using alternative replays?

According to the manual in the box of mine, 10A/250VAC for cooling and 10A/250VAC for heating. I think that's a bit optimistic though.

[Langchop Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Langchop]

No you don't have to measure the temp on the inside. you can use a stick-on temp strip for normal use. It will work fine.

Yes, directly. A buffer bottle with a probe, next to a fermenter wrapped in a blanket won't be so much of usefulness.

[groenspookasem Banned Find all posts View Profile Close groenspookasem]

Do test your electric blanket before implementing and walking away from it, whilst abroad we regularly took ours in for testing
You'd be surprised how many failed and was only a season old. These things take a beatings from normal use and the internal wiring in the element can fail with firey results.

In the end your choice to drop R150 bucks on a heatpad or not.

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[atunguyd Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close atunguyd]

Using copper in the fermenter; the copper will continue to dissolve into solution as fast or faster than the yeast can consume it. Sulfates in the water will bind with the copper producing copper sulfate, a poison. The duration of contact time is the issue, short periods are fine, week long fermentation not so much

Honestly I disagree with this statement.

Firstly Cooper sulphate, is only mildly toxic and then in decent quantities, not the tiny amounts that may be present from using a copper vessel with a wort batch that has tiny amounts of sulphate.

I also don't but the argument that copper just reacts with sulphates in the beer to produce Cooper sulphate. Making copper sulphate normally involves reacting copper with concentrated sulphuric acid as this is the oxidising agent required. Even diluted sulphuric acid will not react with copper so I doubt wort which is only mildly acidic would cause this reaction.

Also breweries have been using copper for b hundreds of years and still do. The switch to stainless had little to do with copper sulphate and more to do with easier maintainance

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[groenspookasem Banned Find all posts View Profile Close groenspookasem]

It's one of those controversial topics, I personally would avoid it for the sake of doubt, SS isn't that much more expensive either. My goal is to eliminate hassle, and if SS cleans quicker, I'll add the effort of cleaning to avoid copper.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯

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[Toxxyc Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Toxxyc]

Alrighty! So this weekend was building time. I first and foremost re-did the wiring and got the STC-1000 working like a charm. I found a "bug" in the software but that's sorted by just plugging it out and back in.

I also dug in the cupboard and found the electric blanket I had spare. Old as hell, but it still worked last time we used it. Tested it and it worked fine. I also found that it's a double, not a single size. As a nice extra, the double is literally two blankets in one, so I literally just cut it in half down the middle. Now there are two halves and they both work perfectly. 75W in total in 25W steps up, so I can set it to 25W, 50W or 75W. Anyway, pictures...

I bought this snap-lid container for the controller. I specifically looked for this type of enclosure that's clear so I can see on the inside. I just like it (always have):


Drilled/cut holes as required:




Fitted the controller and wired it up. Stuck some foam "feet" on the bottom, as it's waaaay too light and gets dragged around by the weight of the cables:




Cleaned and fixed up the fridge. Already busy with the wiring here, but ignore that:


Draining hole easily fits a twinflex cable, more than big enough for the ~75W that the electric blanket draws:


Electric blanket fitted:


Simply screwed it into the rails of the fridge with short screws and a small washer. Works perfectly:


Kept the controller so I can set the wattage inside as needed:


Test run with all wired up, probe inside the fridge. Took about 15 minutes for the blanket to raise the internal temp of the fridge from 20°C to 24°C with the blanket at full blast, so I think it's just fine. Set the blanket to 50W for now, but I think I'll turn it down to 25W soon as it just heats up too much at 50W still.


Aaaand fermenter inside:


Some notes on the build:

1. I need to lift the fermenter. I "guessed" the height of the fermenter with the airlock and completely overestimated the height. That lower shelf that's in the fridge can be lifted to the top section and the fermenter will still fit, and then I can use the entire bottom section for something else. Will need to do that sometime. To boot, the wire shelf is flimsy, so I really need to strengthen it. Thinking about building a stronger wooden shelf I can slide in there for now.
2. I set the STC-1000 to the smallest temp margin (1°C) with a 5 minute delay on the cooling cycle. It seems to be performing very well like this, but I'm actually considering increasing that even more, to 10 minutes. The temp change happens so slowly, I have the time to play with.
3. I'll replace the electric blanket with reptile heat pads for sure. I'll install 2 or 3 smaller ones (those 9W ones) and use them instead. The electric blanket works (it works damn well, actually), but I'm worried about the wires and elements and all that. To boot, if I want to use this as a fridge alone, I'm not sure what moisture will do to the blanket laying on the bottom shelf. With the reptile heat pads I can just not turn them on and they won't lie in water then. I can also place a switch on each and just switch on the ones I want to use (so 9W/18W/27W on demand). This is my primary focus for now (but not for RIGHT now).
4. I now have power (220V) inside the chamber. I'm 99% sure I'll be able to fit another wire through the outlet hole, so I think I'm going to do that and still do the whole multiplug inside the fridge thing, so I have LED lights and everything inside. That's something for later.
5. The transparent box looks nice, but it's shit. I'll ideally like to build it into a heavy, solid box I can stick plugs on directly. The heat side is directly wired into the STC for now, which I don't like anyway. So in the future I think I'll rewire this thing to power external relays, with a proper large box and all that.
6. I need to re-wire the temperature probe's cable. I used normal twin flex to extend the probe and it made no difference to the temperature reading, but the connector block and everything I used looks shit. I want to use a much thinner, neater wire, and maybe even still drill a tiny hole in the fridge with a plug on each side so the probe can just be plugged into the inside of the fridge as needed, or plugged into the STC as needed. I think 3.5mm mono audio jacks will work wonders.

Any ideas?

[JIGSAW Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close JIGSAW]

Looks Good

[BeerHolic Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close BeerHolic]

Like the idea of the electric blanket Toxxyc. I use a reptile heating pad, but find it takies to long for the fermentor to get to about 20C, especially after cold crushing. Think I will replace the reptile pad with electric blanket next winter.

[Langchop Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Langchop]

Looks Good Toxxyc. Thanks for sharing.

Those shelf rails actually look perfect for slotting in a solid wooden shelf.

[Toxxyc Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Toxxyc]

Looks Good Toxxyc. Thanks for sharing.

Those shelf rails actually look perfect for slotting in a solid wooden shelf.

I actually want to avoid a solid wooden shelf, as I want the top and bottom to be more "at one" than it is right now. I'm considering just a stronger support for the wire rack, maybe two thin wooden planks or two pieces offcut flatbar steel in there to support the wire shelf. It's holding for now and has a pretty secure way of "hooking" into those slots, but I want it more stable. I'm nervous with it like that, even if it's pretty much the heaviest it'll ever be loaded right now (25l batch).

[Harhm Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Harhm]

Great stuff