DIY Walk In Cooler Build

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Thanks for the good words. I appreciate it.

I just got back from an epic week in CA, including 3 days at Beer Camp at Sierra Nevada in Chico. I scored an insane amount of craft beer:

TnE3uDV.png


I had to shoot it as a panoramic shot since it was too much beer, even for a landscape orientation picture.

I'll probably start a beer camp thread after I get some of the pictures from others (my battery couldn't make it through the day as my phone is over a year old now) but I just have to say beer camp is an absolutely amazing experience for anyone who loves beer. If you don't try extremely hard every year to get in, then you are missing out on an incredible thing and your life will not ever be totally fulfilled. Beer camp is essential and you should make every human effort to get in but do not cheat or you will get caught and possibly banned from entering ever again.
 
Irrenarzt said:
Thanks for the good words. I appreciate it.

I just got back from an epic week in CA, including 3 days at Beer Camp at Sierra Nevada in Chico. I scored an insane amount of craft beer:

TnE3uDV.png


I had to shoot it as a panoramic shot since it was too much beer, even for a landscape orientation picture.

I'll probably start a beer camp thread after I get some of the pictures from others (my battery couldn't make it through the day as my phone is over a year old now) but I just have to say beer camp is an absolutely amazing experience for anyone who loves beer. If you don't try extremely hard every year to get in, then you are missing out on an incredible thing and your life will not ever be totally fulfilled. Beer camp is essential and you should make every human effort to get in but do not cheat or you will get caught and possibly banned from entering ever again.
Click to expand...

Wait, Beer camp? Is that like summer camp for adults with beer? Why am I just learning about this now?
 
Irrenarzt said:
Thanks for the good words. I appreciate it.

I just got back from an epic week in CA, including 3 days at Beer Camp at Sierra Nevada in Chico. I scored an insane amount of craft beer:

TnE3uDV.png


I had to shoot it as a panoramic shot since it was too much beer, even for a landscape orientation picture.

I'll probably start a beer camp thread after I get some of the pictures from others (my battery couldn't make it through the day as my phone is over a year old now) but I just have to say beer camp is an absolutely amazing experience for anyone who loves beer. If you don't try extremely hard every year to get in, then you are missing out on an incredible thing and your life will not ever be totally fulfilled. Beer camp is essential and you should make every human effort to get in but do not cheat or you will get caught and possibly banned from entering ever again.
Click to expand...

Great Meeting you at Beer Camp! I saw the overhead RO line and then saw the beer camp post. Awesome work and setup! Gives me something to dream about. Keith from #117. Glad you stocked up, looks like you got some of CA's best!
 
Irrenarzt said:
Oh yes. A lot of people in my beer circles know about this build. I'm sure someone might have had the same idea at some point. Imagine if you were a neighborhood kid and you came across a walk in with 100's of bottles of high gravity beers?

Marshall might tell his little friends as I'm sure he's pissed at me for firing him after his Helen Keller moment.
Click to expand...

You'd be surprised. Young kids wouldn't have any idea what those beers were. They would opt to lift a 12pk of Keystone light off a neighbor that left his garage door open than they would try to hit your cooler. Easier to carry-Familiar territory.
Ask me how I know:off:

Kudos on your build! It's given me scores of information to consider for my plan.
 
Irrenarzt said:
Had a great weekend in Austin. That place is much nicer than I recall. I got about 40 bottles to add to the walk in, which I loaded last night when I got home. No pics as it was too late.
Click to expand...

Wow, sorry I didn't see this thread 3 months sooner. I'd have set you up. While Jester King has some interesting brews, I would have suggested Thirsty Planet for some good brews. Salt Lick is 6 miles from my house. And while their barbeque is ok, there is much better here in Austin. Maybe next time!
 
tlfuller27 said:
did i miss something???
Click to expand...

There were no pictures of this amazing mexi-rack, so no I guess you missed nothing.

I installed 3 new Al top shelves today as the old ones were sagging. I couldn't afford the full load of plate when I did them before but I finally got the last three in:

DOooJlv.png


Not the best pic but clearly there will be no more sagging.
 
rxpx40 said:
Wow, sorry I didn't see this thread 3 months sooner. I'd have set you up. While Jester King has some interesting brews, I would have suggested Thirsty Planet for some good brews. Salt Lick is 6 miles from my house. And while their barbeque is ok, there is much better here in Austin. Maybe next time!
Click to expand...

Well I'll plan another trip soon. If you have a spot for me to camp in the backyard, then I can spend that much more money on beer versus schitty but expensive lodging...
 
johnsnownw said:
My budget for beer is currently $45 a month (wife is preggos). Anyway, that looks to be about a years worth of beer for me. Needless to say, I'm a bit jealous of that.
Click to expand...

HAH! same here... (Well, she just had the kid) my budget is a bit more than that. Lets just say i do not buy much beer now a days and save up for big brew days (just spent about 1/2 my monthly allowance on hops for a nice IPA)
 
Rivenin said:
HAH! same here... (Well, she just had the kid) my budget is a bit more than that. Lets just say i do not buy much beer now a days and save up for big brew days (just spent about 1/2 my monthly allowance on hops for a nice IPA)
Click to expand...

LOL...well this is our second...but congrats to you. I actually finagled my homebrew budget to come out of our grocery budget...so the alcohol budget is independent. :mug:
 
johnsnownw said:
LOL...well this is our second...but congrats to you. I actually finagled my homebrew budget to come out of our grocery budget...so the alcohol budget is independent. :mug:
Click to expand...

Nice. I will say that with 3 kids, homebrewing is actually a good hobby. I can brew at home and have my boys (5 and 3) in the backyard while I'm brewing. And my baby girl is old enough now to hang out outside, too (10 mos. yesterday). I can plop her in her bouncy chair and she is happy to be outside.
 
ladodger34 said:
Nice. I will say that with 3 kids, homebrewing is actually a good hobby. I can brew at home and have my boys (5 and 3) in the backyard while I'm brewing. And my baby girl is old enough now to hang out outside, too (10 mos. yesterday). I can plop her in her bouncy chair and she is happy to be outside.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I'm looking forward to when my 2 year old can help. I imagine I'll indoctrinate him pretty early, the wife is getting tired of stirring at dough in.
 
johnsnownw said:
Yeah, I'm looking forward to when my 2 year old can help. I imagine I'll indoctrinate him pretty early, the wife is getting tired of stirring at dough in.
Click to expand...

Cordless drill and a paint mixer designed for 5 gallon pails set on low speed of course ;) If she gets to use the drill it's not work it's fun:p
 
johnsnownw said:
Yeah, I'm looking forward to when my 2 year old can help. I imagine I'll indoctrinate him pretty early, the wife is getting tired of stirring at dough in.
Click to expand...
My boys are 23 and 24. Having them help me is more fun than a barrel of monkeys.
OK. We ARE a barrel of monkeys, but who cares?:tank:
 
Well I had a Heady clone on tap but that was killed quickly. I need to get to brewing to fill the rest of the kegs and I still need to run the gas lines but that's pretty trivial. I have a 4 day weekend coming up and plan on brewing a bunch to get the kegs all filled up. I will post up when all the kegs are fully running.

I've had a local guy renting time on my system making barley washes for the last month from a local nano-distillery and he's pretty much taken up the entire garage but I told him his time is up and that he needs to get everything out by Thursday night so I can prep to marathon brew.
 
He paid me 500 for the month, but he's been in there A LOT. He's literally been in there every day but 3 or 4 in the last month. He's made a ton of wort...

That only includes the water and the system use. He's had to provide his own PBW, malt/yeast, propane, etc...
 
He didn't damage anything as far as I can tell, so yeah I would do it again. He's been pretty clean but he did bring over a couple demijohns that were full of a potato vodka wash that he used some strain of aspergillus in that really smelled like a dead hooker. I will have to bleach bomb the location where he was cleaning so I don't get any of this mold in my beers. I scolded him for this but he was pretty nonchalant about it. He claims he didn't bring any into the garage but I'm sure he may have tracked a little in. I'll break out the garden sprayer with a concentrated bleach solution on Friday and bomb the working areas before I get back to brewing.
 
This is great - you did an amazing job! Thanks for documenting everything so well, was a great read!
 
Sorry to keep bugging you about this, but have you had enough time to get an idea of power consumption from this thing?
 
No I can't seem to log on to my utility company site as it's been giving me some issues. I do not keep the bill copies and it has not been a year yet so it's difficult to compare, especially with the decommissioning of chest freezers. I can say that the AC runs only a few times a day, even in this unseasonably warm weather (it's been really warm here for the last week or so). I had it off for the bulk of the winter as it did not need to be on and was holding temp easily. I had to put a heater in there for a couple days as it was threatening to get below 32 inside.

I do not have numbers but it is pretty efficient. My bills are about the same (going off memory, no hard data) this winter as last. Before it got cold (so we'd have a good deltaT) I had a guy from a spray foam insulation company that I know come out and use his FLIR gun and found zero thermal leakage. It's tight, even around the door (where he saw just a slight color change at the bottom two corners of the door, but nothing on the top so there won't be a convection current set up, which he said is a common leak mode).
 

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