zakleeright

Recipes 

“Son-of-Fermenter” chiller made: works great! Love it. But need more space and want to lager, so…
Bought Ranco controller, currently cruising Craigslist for a fridge.

Thought/question:
Since Ranco turns entire unit on/off, doesn’t seem like both freezer and fridge sections would maintain appropriate temps. I’d like to maintain the original “Two-zone” function: freezer on top, fridge on bottom (but fridge at appropriate temp for my yeast of course, via the Ranco).
Can someone confirm my belief that the freezer/fridge sections would be the same temp (i.e, single temp zone), and therefore reduced to a single temp zone? Or (hopefully) not?

Appreciate input from anyone with experience with the whole fridge/external controller arrangement.
danke

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- zakleeright

david_42

Recipes 

There's no way to predict what the temperatures will be. Most of the time, the freezer will be colder than the fridge, but how much colder depends on the design, as there are 3 or 4 different ways of building them.

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zakleeright

Recipes 

got it...thanks. Now what about this?

Thought/idea#2: Has anyone used a refrigerator in a “Son-of-Fermenter” configuration?
- For freezer section, let freeze as normal. Whatever built-in thermostat for the freezer keeps it at the appropriate “water-freezing temp”, as normal.
- For main fridge section, block off or disable the normal/original cold air intake/temp control.
- Now, use the same thermostat/fan arrangement from “SoF” chiller, but fan is between freezer and fridge. (Cut a hole between freezer/fridge section and mount a 3” fan…plus the obligatory air return hole)
- Thus, freezer section serves as the “gallon jug/ice” section from the SoF chiller design.
- The SoF thermostat/fan pulls cold air from freezer when needed to maintain temp in fridge section.
- So it’s basically the SoF chiller design, but using a fridge that makes its own “ice” in the freezer section, and no need for the Ranco controller.

Does this make sense, would this work? Or does this simply reveal my lack of refrigeration knowledge?

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- zakleeright