Sausage + Beer Fermentation Chamber

[centex99]

So... I live in Texas and already have a fridge, freezer, and keezer in my garage... don't really want to add two additional appliances (one for beer, one for sausage) and think def. want an area for both...
Do you think it's possible to make a dual zone system with a window AC unit or something similar?

Sausage/charcuterie section needs to be 55 degrees or so and 70-80% humidity most of the time... for a small period of time before drying, you have to incubate at 70-90 degrees for up to 48 hours... I could likely do this in a different chamber if needed.
Then obviously, beer, I'd like to be able to do both ales/lagers... so I need 50ish degrees... don't know if high humidity would cause problems or not, but I'd likely have the two areas as separate areas, but just have the cold air being shared...
Has anyone done such a project? or have any recommendations/comments/etc...
I was thinking for both sides, maybe a 4x4x4 area... but haven't gotten anywhere near that far on a plan... Obviously would like a decent amount of room in both chambers, particularly on the beer side enough for two 13 gallon fermenters or perhaps 4 6 gallon size... don't mind splitting batches up if I have to... then again, I haven't started brewing 10G batches yet anyway...

 

[centex99]

Oh, and this would go in the garage and have to work during Texas summers (110+) and winters (typically no worse than 30)

 

[richl025]

Can't contribute much to your question except to tell you not to worry about the humidity for your beer - inside the fermenter the humidity is 100%

 

[centex99]

The more I think about this, I'm not sure its a good idea or not... maybe I'm better off just getting two upright freezers... or a freezer (one chamber vs top/bottom fridge) for the sausage... and another fridge or freezer for the beer... though, I don't think you can fit two 12 gallon fermenters in a fridge...

 

[oldstyle69]

a few builds on here that are duel zone chambers, done with AC and some computer fans. im looking to build one for lagering and regular ale temps as well.

 

[Facinerous]

Joking.

I'm pretty sure you should put your sausage in your beer. Then you only have to use one chest freezer! Plus you get the bonus of having even more delicious beer and sausage. You know this is genius.

 

[scone]

Not to bring an old thread back from the dead but i just found this while googling, and the topic is so spot on...

I'm thinking about doing the exact same thing: using a chest freezer I currently use as a temp-controlled fermentation chamber as a meat curing box. It also occurs to me that the massive amount of c02 produced during beer fermentation might not be the best environment for fermenting sausage in (i imagine it would neatly mimic anaerobic conditions) at least for the most active days.

On the other hand, I can imagine a situation in which a small fan exhaust hooked to a interior humidistat, plus a tub of salt water on the bottom, would control both the humidity inside and flush co2 created during fermentation... at least my thoughts are that the most active part of fermentation would also be creating the most humidity, causing the exhaust fan to run continuously during that phase...

 

[centex99]

Interesting thoughts... I haven't really decided yet but am leaning towards an upright freezer/fridge (no freezer) for both as separate entities...

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