Due to popular demand, this is a follow up post outlining the electrical layout of the temperature control circuit for the fermentinator.

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Yes, yes you can.

In my previous post I outlined what I was hoping to acheive with this project. I have now completed the mark II revision and will soon have some results to taste.

The process was reasonably simple with a little electronic magic.

The first part of the project was to build a cabinet to hold the fermentation carboy. This is a 30 litre container that is used to hold the beer mixture while the yeast chows down on the fermentable sugars to produce alcohol. The cabinet is basically just a 6mm MDF box with another 6mm MDF box a little smaller on the inside. This creates a 1 inch void on each side that I filled with marine expanding foam.

Voila! A big ice-box basically.

That was the easy part.
OK onto the electronics and hardware.
In order to control the temperature, you are going to need two components.
1. a method to control the temperature
2. a method to affect change on the temperature

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So, long time no blog.

One reason for that is that I have been busying myself with home brewing of beers, ciders and ginger beers. Home brewing is a great hobby that gives you great control over what you make. Flavours can be tweaked, styles can be modified.

On the whole it is a very simple process and certaqinly not one to be afraid of.

In days gone by, home brew was something that your neighbour or father in law did, and the results were never anything to write home about. They would spend nights in their shed or laundry concocting and maintaining their brew and spend the days roaming the neighbourhood and harassing their friends to collect bottles.

Times have certainly changed now. Coopers have seriously commercialised the worldwide home brewing industry and are the biggest home brew manufacturer in the world now. They product some fantastic kits and sell everything that you need.

A starter kit will set you back $80 and contain everything that you need to produce an excellent Coopers Lager.

I digress.

In my short time brewing I have discovered something that not all home brewers stumble upon. One of the most important factors of producing a GOOD home brew is ensuring that the first fermentaion cycle is done at a controlled temerature in the right range.

I have had some cracking results with beers brewed in my garage, but that was while the ambient temperatures were higher, and a bit more consistant. Now that we are in winter, the Sydney temps are varying a bit and where I live it gets as low as 3 or 4 decrees C overnight and as high as 20-24 during the day.

This is causing me issues.

My latest batch is no exception. The thermometer tells me that the maximum temp for the current brew was 21 deg C and the low was 16 deg c. This is going to be reflected in the taste I am sure. (ideal is 22 deg c)

So, what is a brewer to do to fix this? I am building a fermentation cabinet. Big enough to hold two carboys and lined with insulating foam, it will be able to level out the temp differences. However of course I am not leaving it at that. I have a peltier cooler and a temperature controller and am going to create a franken-heater-cooler cabinet that will hold a temperature. It will heat to get the right temp if the ambient temp is lower that the set temp and it will cool when the ambient is higher.

I am still collecting the parts at the moment, so expect updates in July as to how it is going, however my testing last weekend allowed me to refrigerate a cardboard box that was not insulated down to 6 degrees c from the ambient of 19 degrees c, and heat up to about 35 degrees c.

This is going to be an interesting project and I am yet to find any reference online about something similar.