Setting up a temp controlled fridge and brew bench...

[sifty]

Hi all, brand new at this. I'm in NZ if I use any pricing etc...
So I bought a Brewzilla all-grain brewing device recently, and while I was waiting for it to arrive I started gearing up my mini-brewery. I grabbed an old fridge at the dump for $20 cos I liked the styling. I was only intending to use it as an insulated box with a small heating element, but when I wired it up it ran beautifully, so I have heating and cooling available...

The interior door was buggered quite badly damaged. I thought of replacing it with a flat sheet of plastic but the shelves would be useful for bottle conditioning, so looked at patching it up to re-use...

Just laid fibreglass tape around the edge and filled with epoxy...

And it cleaned up well with a bit of a sand...

And the seal was in surprisingly good nick, bit of a scrub in some bleach and it cleaned up ok...

Came together well...

Then gave the door a sand and bombed it with some Rust-Oleum paint and clear coat...

Was a Prestcold brand. Think the new name is an improvement...

And made up a label for under the handle...

And it looks sweet...

I've ordered a 45W heating element, but as it hasn't arrived I chucked a $10 reptile heating lamp (50w) in to get things running...

And fitted a s/s plate above it to dissipate the heat a bit, avoiding a hot spot directly above the lamp...

And my PIR controller also hasn't arrived, so I hooked up an Inkbird controller, fitted a coupe of glands for the heating and temp sensor cables...

Came out so good I bought another one ($25). As a fermenting fridge plus a conditioning fridge will make things easier...

 

[sifty]

Also did some building, turned this...

into this...

Has different levels to help with sparging, siphoning etc, plus storage for bins underneath. Bit of a gamble design-wise before I've actually done any brewing, but should work out ok. Cleared out a corner of the garage to put it in...

And put down a brew last week. Simple all-grain APA, with NZ hops...

And malt pipe lifted for sparging mid process...

Into the fermenting bucket...

Original gravity came out around 1.058, pretty good sugar levels I think...?

And into the brew fridge. No airlock fitted here yet, bucket had just been lifted in after pitching yeast once it had cooled to 21 deg C, almost exactly 20 litres of wort...

And ticking away doing its thing. My lovely little yeast cells are making things bubble away...

So will hold at 20 degs for 10-14 days. Will take gravity readings later on then siphon into bottling bucket, add conditioning sugar and bottle. Then another couple of weeks...

Took about 6hrs as it was my first time and I had initial equipment cleaning to do etc, I'll get better as I have learned how the temps go now, and I'll be able to multitask once things are under way. Been interesting so far. No doubt I will learn lots from this forum...

 

[cushyno]

Both builds looking nice and tidy

 

[sifty]

Cheers. Yep I'll tidy up the wiring after this brew, still not sure of best placement of temp probe etc. The bench is outdoor rated timber too so I can push it outside on nice days, plus not worry about getting it wet during the process. The biggest thing I learned was to check taps are closed. Spilled a bit of water inside the garage on my first run...

 

[sifty]

Actually my first question is this.
I used half a whirlfloc tablet so there was quite a bit of sediment floating about post boil. I whirlpooled and let things settle a bit before using the tap to drain into the fermenter bucket. I stopped before the 'bits' went into the bucket, leaving about 3 litres of murky sludge in the Brewzilla.

Should I have included this? Is this where the flavours come from? Is there any harm or benefits either way? Thinking now I should have used it, but I have no clue at all.
Cheers...

[Edit] Did some research, lots of info on this and quite a few experiments have been carried out. Interestingly transferring trub from kettle to fermenter seems to aid clarity. Here's the outcome of one experiment...

"For those who tend to prefer clearer and crisper beers with potentially sharper bitterness, consider not worrying too much about the amount of kettle trub you transfer to the carboy. Alternately, those who enjoy slightly smoother bitterness and don’t mind a bit more haze in their beer may want to continue investing a little more effort in transferring only the clearest wort to their fermentor."

Interesting...