Building a Brew Room - Lessons Learned

The brew room is done!

Vent hood and storage shelf

Fermentation chamber and sink with pegboard

No, it's not particularly neat, but it seemed about as tidy as it was going to get. 

Vent Hood

The contractors got the vent hood in, but come to find out that there's a minimum drop from the ceiling. As a result, the hood is a bit lower than I'd like (the controls are at about my eye level) but there's enough space between the hood and the table. 

One Table Too Many

Speaking of the tables... I bought two of them. After assembling one, I realized there really wasn't room for the other. Given that the hood is pretty much in the corner, I really couldn't fit the other table in without losing tabletop space or making it a tight squeeze near the hood. The other one went into the laundry room for folding. 

I had some 220V wiring moved from roughly where the ferm chamber is to the corner by the hood. Someday I plan to get a much more powerful induction burner and will need the extra voltage to make it happen.

Brew Sink

The sink went in with some difficulty. The plumbers had clearly never worked on a commercial sink before. They didn't install the 90-degree elbows behind the faucet, so they had to punch holes in the drywall to get the supply lines to make the bend. They also needed a ridiculous amount of pipe dope to make the connections. That got fixed tout suite. 

The drain really confused them. I ordered a drain that closes by moving a lever. This drain added a few inches to the bottom and made plumbing the trap tricky. The eventually figured it out, but the damn thing leaks. I left the sink half-filled with water to soak off some bottle labels. I came back several hours laters to a puddle on the floor. That's going on the warranty punch list. 

The faucet itself is .... meh. The aerator started rusting after about 2 months. More annoying is the cold-water valve. If I try to turn it on slowly - to fill a small glass with just a little bit of water - the valve makes a loud THUNK! and shuts off. Keep turning it and the water comes back on. It's a bother when I want a trickle of water. I guess its great if I'm trying to fill a mop bucket.

Pegboard

Seeing as I had a lot of free wall space around the sink, I installed a stainless-steel pot shelf up high and two Triton 22x18" white plastic pegboard panels in the corner. This would give me a place to hang tools and tubing. I also added a small Homak 12-drawer parts organizer to keep kegs parts at hand. The pegboard installed pretty easily when I used Triton's pegboard mounting kit. The anchors require a bit of drilling, but these pegboards aren't going anywhere.

Installed panel (left) and anchor

Unfortunately, the distance between the organizer's mounting holes didn't match the pegboard's spacing. I drove two screws into the board and basically hung the parts drawer on them. Not ideal, but it works.

Drawer unit resting on screws driven into pegboard

No More Brew Boxes

Previously, I kept a lot of my gear in two plastic totes: One for brew day (scale, thermometers, etc) and another for the kegs (wrenches, spare o-rings, etc.) I even wrote about making a brew day box a while back. Thing is, with the pegboard and parts drawers - nevermind a whole room dedicated to brewing - I really don't need the boxes anymore. Everything has a home now. 

Turning a Danby Refrigerator into a Fermentation Chamber

After much renovation purging, the last thing I need is more stuff. Except for homebrewing gear. There's usually something I can justify owning. 😁

Danby DAR044A5BSLDD

The family started asking for a list of things I would like for Christmas. The list this year was short but very specific:

• Inkbird ITC-308 temperature controller
• Danby DAR044A5BSLDD Compact Refrigerator

Put those two items together and you've got a fermentation chamber.

I picked this particular refrigerator because the evaporator is flat against the back of the interior. Most mini-fridges have the evaporator shaped into a "freezer" compartment on the ceiling. Not only does it take up needed space, it's tricky to move it out of the way without rupturing it. This Danby design also means there are no refrigerant lines in the top, so it's easy-peasy to drill a hole for a tap tower. If you're pressed for space, you could make this a kegerator/ferm chamber combo unit.

As for the Inkbird, it's an easy way to add temperature control without having to do any wiring. Set the temperatures you want, plug in the cooling and heating sources.

Modding the Fridge Interior

5gal and 2.5gal cornys (note the
can rack peeking into the right
side of the picture)

The fridge can be used without any permanent interior modifications but you will sacrifice some volume. This fridge has molded shelving on the inside of the door that takes up a fair amount of space, particularly the soda-can rack.

The most I could fit was a 5gal corny on the floor and perhaps two smaller cornys on the hump in the back. That rack won't allow for a second corny keg to sit on the floor. Smaller 2gal bucket fermenters fit easily.

More importantly, my 30L Spiedel fermenter and 6gal buckets won't fit without doing some cutting.

The molded door shelving looked like it could be cut away without too much difficulty. I found a YouTube video of a guy using a Dremel to cut along the outer edge. I had a Dremel somewhere, but didn't feel like digging it out. Also, noisy as hell. I figured I could brute force it with a utility knife and a screwdriver.

But to do that, I've got to get the door off.

Removing the Door

I started to take the plastic top off to get at the top hinge, but realized that would be more trouble than its worth. It was much easier to remove the bottom hinge instead. I gently rested the fridge on its back and removed the two screws holding it on. I was surprised that this fridge has only one adjustable foot on it, which makes it difficult to level. Once the bottom hinge plate was off, I slid the door off the top hinge.

Removing the Door Gasket

Removing the door gasket is simple. It more or less snaps into a channel that runs around the perimeter of the door. I peeled back one corner, then carefully lifted the gasket out. I placed it on a flat surface so it wouldn't warp while I worked.

 Cutting the Door Shelving

This part is probably the most dangerous. Not only am I working with a sharp knife, I'm trying to cut material that's tough and leaves sharp edges when cut. I wanted the gasket back to rest on plastic, so I was going to make my cut about 1/2" in from the gasket channel. The plastic makes a bend here, so there's an easy line to follow.

I started the cut by pushing the point of the utility knife into the plastic. I knew there was some foam insulation underneath, so I kept the blade short. It took some effort to make a cut in this material. I had to use both hands: one to pull the knife, while the other applied pressure to push the blade in and along the cut. The blade slipped out several times. The corners were particularly tricky since the plastic is thicker there.

Starting the cut

Working along the edge, about 1/2"
in from the gasket channel

Cutting the plastic is only half the job: The insulating foam fills all the voids underneath the plastic and is quite stiff, so that will need to be cut as well. I used a hacksaw-like blade to undercut the larger foam sections and peel the plastic and foam off the door.

Foam underneath shelving

Peeling away the lining and foam

After a while, I could peel away pieces of the molded plastic

Utility knife to cut plastic, small hacksaw to cut foam flush,
and pliers to lift and tear the plastic

After cutting the perimeter free, it's simply a matter of peeling away the plastic. It won't come off in one piece, so I made a few secondary cuts around the can shelving to make it easier. The edges are quite sharp, so wear gloves.

Door minus plastic shelving

Sealing the Foam Insulation

You could stop right here and reassemble the fridge. It will work just fine, but you run the risk of getting condensation into the door which can turn to mold and/or mildew. I've seen other builds use tape or a sheet of thin plexiglas to seal the inside of the door. Being a bit impatient, I wanted to use what I had on hand. So I used HVAC foil tape and a can of Flex Seal spray. I planned to use the Flex Seal to fill in the larger holes and provide an overall seal coat, then use the HVAC tape to cover the rougher cut surfaces. I emptied the whole can on this door in about 3 coats, then applied the tape. The tape is wider than the rough spots so it would make a good seal. It's not all that attractive, but hardly anyone is going to see it.

Applying Flex Seal

Applying HVAC tape

All done!

The last steps are to snap the door gasket back in place and rehang the door on its hinges.

Setting up the Inkbird

The Inkbird ITC-308 can control one cooling device (the fridge, in this case) and one heating device (a Ferm Wrap, which I bought later). You set the temperature you want to hold and how much wiggle room you will allow (hold at 65F, but allow to rise as far as 67F before cooling or drop to 63F before heating). You can also set a compressor delay so the refrigerator motor doesn't burn out from starting up too frequently.

I will eventually drill a small hole in the back left corner of the fridge to thread the temperature probe through, but for my first batch of lager, I just closed the door on the wire.

Once I had it set up, the Inkbird was pretty easy to use. It kicked the fridge on right when I wanted it to. Lagering was pretty easy. Fancier models can set a schedule to ramp temperatures up and down over several days, but it wasn't much trouble to make my changes manually.

Gear Review: Fun With FLIR One

It's been cold enough to freeze the tail off a brass monkey here, so I was eager to see where we're losing heat in the house. In some places I can actually feel cold air seeping in, but other cold spots are less obvious. A thermal camera would be ideal, but I'm not shelling out $$ for one. But I can borrow one from the local library.

FLIR One for smartphones
(Photo: FLIR)

Arlington County maintains a "library of things" which includes gardening tools, American Girl dolls, board games, a GoPro, and a FLIR camera.

The county lends out several FLIR One cameras to promote energy conservation, but seeing as homebrewing is a temperature-sensitive hobby, it's somewhat useful there as well.

I checked out the Android camera for one week. It only took a few moments to install the FLIR One app on my phone. Once that was done, I was scanning away. I was impressed by its sensitivity. It was able to detect the warm air ducts underneath the floors and even my footprints on the cold floor. After I swept the inside and outside of the house looking for cold spots, I took it to the brew room.

Homebrew in Infrared

The FLIR confirmed what I already knew about the brew room: It's modestly insulated with a few minor cold spots where the exterior wall is breached. This time of year, it stays at around 60°F with no forced-air circulation. The poured-concrete floor acts like a giant heat sink, so I can ferment at ale temperatures for 8-9 months out of the year without any artificial cooling.

ESB in infrared

So what does beer look like to FLIR? I trained the camera on a batch of ESB in the Spiedel. The FLIR adjusts its sensitivity automatically depending on the levels of heat it registers, so even slight differences in temperature appear stark. The Spiedel looks like a warm blob, and you can even make out the level of the beer. It's practically incandescent in infrared.

I also have a small batch of lager fermenting in my new fermentation chamber (blog post coming soon!) and I tried to take a picture of that as well. While I could see the bucket visually, it was practically invisible in infrared. The inside of the chamber and the beer were both at 55°F. The only thing I could make out was the wire for the Inkbird's temperature probe. There was basically nothing to see, so I didn't even bother to snap a picture. That's actually a good thing.

Blanketed fermenter

I also took a picture of the Spiedel with its thermal blanket over it, which is just the thin Reflectix-like bag that my Blue Apron shipments come in. It's not a great insulator, but anything to slow down the cooling is a plus. It seems to be working. You can see the warm beer peeking out below the bottom edge, but it's cooler everywhere else. Incidentally, that warm spot in the middle is me: the blanket is reflecting back my IR signature.

I have a FermWrap hooked up to my other Inkbird and the temperature set to 65°F with a 1°F heat differential (meaning it will kick on at 64°F). With the blanket, it takes several hours for the batch to cool down to 64°F, so it's doing its job.

Verdict: Useful to rent or borrow, but don't buy

The FLIR One is a neat little tool. It's not worth buying for most homebrewers, except for those that have $200 burning a hole in their pockets. But if you can borrow or rent one, it will be very useful to check the efficiency of a keezer build or fermentation chamber.