The perfect fermentation fridge?

[CATpAW Brewing]

A few weeks ago I was fortunate enough to come across a wine cabinet at auction, at a great price, that has been my saviour for temperature control of my ferments. I run a 30lt and 60lt ferment vessel, and am often making an ale and a lager at the same time.

 

 

 

I had been looking at fridges and freezers and considered using external thermostat controls to achieve the correct temperature range. Heating was always going to have to be adressed as a seperate excercise, and I would have to either compromise on temperatures between ales and lagers, or not put them down at the same time.

 

 

 

The beauty of the wine cabinet is that it's range is already where I need it.

 

 

 

Additionally, it has dual zone control, so that I can set the upper half at 18- 20 deg C for my ales, and the lower section at 11 - 13 deg C for my lagers.

 

 

 

And a bonus I did not realise at 1st, was that the upper section has both a cooling circuit, and a heater! Now that Brisbane is experiencing bitterly cold days (as low as 20 deg C) the heater is kicking in to hold the temperature on my ales.

 

 

 

There's a lot of brands on the market, but the unit I purchased is the 270lt Quaff model, which can be found at the following site:

 

 

 

http://www.quaffwinecabinets.com/

 

 

 

Justified the purchase to SWMBO on the basis of the substantial savings the household is making on drink purchases and the fact that the wine cellar is a very stylish appliance.

[THIRSTY MATT]

ive been doin the same for a while mate!!

 

ive had reasonable success too with sixty litre wine cooler from target for $159.

 

struggles in extreme temps though.......search "temp control" in this forum, we discussed it a fair bit a while back mate!

 

cheers

 

matt

[sammy]

You're having a laugh right?

 

 

 

Two and a half thousand dollars for a fermentation cabinet!!

[CATpAW Brewing]

If that's the retail price, I got a bargain at about 1/4 of that price.