Creating a temperature controlled fermentation room: Difference between revisions
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{{Home Brew}} | |||
Due to the weather lately, our beers have been fermenting as high as 80F or above. We decided to attempt to create a temperature controlled room to store our carboys in while they were fermenting - and what better place to do it then in our beer room?! So our beer room has a window in it and our first thought was to use that - however it is at ground level and didn't seem like it would quite work. So we opted to use the door to the beer room and mount an AC in it to cool the room. | Due to the weather lately, our beers have been fermenting as high as 80F or above. We decided to attempt to create a temperature controlled room to store our carboys in while they were fermenting - and what better place to do it then in our beer room?! So our beer room has a window in it and our first thought was to use that - however it is at ground level and didn't seem like it would quite work. So we opted to use the door to the beer room and mount an AC in it to cool the room. | ||
Latest revision as of 08:12, 18 July 2013
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Due to the weather lately, our beers have been fermenting as high as 80F or above. We decided to attempt to create a temperature controlled room to store our carboys in while they were fermenting - and what better place to do it then in our beer room?! So our beer room has a window in it and our first thought was to use that - however it is at ground level and didn't seem like it would quite work. So we opted to use the door to the beer room and mount an AC in it to cool the room.
As you can see above, we got a cheap hollowish door from lowes in the damaged section - a $45 dollar door marked down to $11. Unfortunately it was also 2 inches too wide for our door frame. So we cut off an inch from each side, and found out just how hollow that door was!
Since we wanted to mount a 50lb air conditioner in the door we decided to firm up the door with some 1x4s. Mike cut them down to size and they fit right in. We tried using liquid nails to keep the boards in place but they didn't quite cut it so we got some 1" wood screws and screwed the pieces into the door. From there, we measured the window AC and cut out the square from the door for it to fit in - it was 12"x18.5".
Next we had to make the AC mount, which we used a 2x4 for. Then insert the AC and make sure it all works together. Next we had to screw on the hinges and get the door to shut (which required a bit more sanding as our floor was pretty uneven! But we got it mounted and it is currently cooling our beer room!
After we got the door finished, we tackled the window! we got some insulation and cut a bunch of pieces to the size of the window, glued them together using liquid nails. They fit just nicely into the window to insulate it and prevent cold air loss. We opted to go with a styrofoam like insulation so we didn't have to worry about the moisture affecting the insulation.
The ac is set at 60F and the room is doing nicely at maintaining that temperature. Other things that could be done to improve this project are: adding a doorknob, adding weatherstripping to the doorframe, and adding a temperature controller to the AC to further drop the temperature (AC internal limits are 60F).