'The Attic' is a repurposed homebrewing fermentation cabinet that I had built 23 years ago. It was made from thick foamboard panels with pine frames covered with white tileboard inside and painted lauan plywood outside. 4' w, 4' h, 1.5' deep (~120 x 120 x 45 cm). The opening was sized to fit an old refrigerator door gasket that I had. I epoxied 1" wide sheet metal strips around the outside of the door opening, made the door to overlap, and glued/screwed the magnetic gasket onto the inner face of the door. The hinges are just 1/4" steel pins in blocks above and below the door. It has worked great!
Anyway, it was mainly used to keep temps in the 60s during ale fermentations, and I don't brew much (drinking) beer anymore. So I patched it up a bit and outfitted it with a chicken brooder heater to use it for my aging cabinet, and nicknamed it 'The Attic'
The heater gets it up to about 98F (36C) without any danger of going over. I don't have any particular schedule, but I'll turn the heater on for a few days to a week, then allow them to cool down. Most of my closures are loose fitting corks (a few have everlasting gaskets), or Badmo's, so there is some air exchange going on. Then I'll leave the heater off for a while, and then start again, doing it a couple or three times a month.
, and I think it is helping the aging process.I've been storing my product in this cabinet since I began this hobby, but added the heater about 18 months ago. As you can see, with 2 Badmo's sitting on top, I'm running out of room inside. The 5 L wooden barrel on top is full of water - I probably won't use it again.
