Fridge and venting?

Hi,

I’m new to this brewing thing and will try something easy first, but in a month or two I want to try making an Altbier, which can ferment at around 60-70F but needs to condition at 40. So I am thinking ahead for temperature control. A refrigerator is the obvious choice, but what happens with the CO2 produced inside the fridge during conditioning? Do you guys use some kind of venting tube that allows gas buildup to get out of the fridge?

I have never heard of or encountered any issues…I assume you are thinking about the CO2 level rising until it is unsafe? I believe you would have to be brewing a huge amount of beer for that to ever be an issue. In fact most of the breweries I have been to with the huge fermentors often have a 10 gallon bucket filled with water as the “swamp” for C02 kick off.

Google Johnson controller or this forum for info on temp control. You can use a old fridge and take the shelves out or again Google “son of a fermentor”

Tim

[quote=“dvizard”]Hi,

I’m new to this brewing thing and will try something easy first, but in a month or two I want to try making an Altbier, which can ferment at around 60-70F but needs to condition at 40. So I am thinking ahead for temperature control. A refrigerator is the obvious choice, but what happens with the CO2 produced inside the fridge during conditioning? Do you guys use some kind of venting tube that allows gas buildup to get out of the fridge?[/quote]

With beers fermenting in a chest freezer, there is no need to vent. No issues. Now, your carboy/bucket can blow it’s top if the airlock clogs, but a fridge/freezer gasket is just not that tight.

OTOH, if I stick my head in the freezer to clean it or pick up something that dropped, it’s quite clear to me that there’s no oxygen in there, so don’t go sticking your head in for more time than you can hold your breath. There was recently a post to an one video with a brewery employee lowering a candle into an open fermenter. When the candle reached the rim the CO2 snuffed it. Pretty cool.

It will be fine. The seals around the fridge door/freezer door aren’t as tight as you think.

At the conditioning point, the CO2 off gas would be minimal anyways. If you have freezer chest and worried abound build up, you can run a fan for a minute or two to blow out any CO2, which can displace oxygen as previously statated.