Psych

Recipes 

Added pics of the chamber in it's almost complete state, just need a top (putting on a glass wine-fridge door that weighs like 30lbs but is insulated), sealing, waterproofing (somewhat) the interior and eventually chuck some wood around it to make it look presentable. Then of course adding the compressor and such to it.

I have an STC-1000 ("Ebay temp controller") coming in the mail, the wine fridge controller parts worked perfectly mated up to the compressor however I couldn't override the highest temperature being 50f without an external controller doing all the work anyways. I'll salvage it for future project parts, otherwise none of that wine fridge will be used in this build.

Function over form for now, hope to have this setup and working real soon! Will use the regular thermostat for now and adjust the course adjustment screw to get to 64f or so, that'll do until I get the STC-1000!

So excited to see this actually progressing!

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Single vessel E-BIAB setup

Donor Fridge Fermentation Chamber

Psych

Recipes 

It's woooorrrrking! YAY! Updated the first post!

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Single vessel E-BIAB setup

Donor Fridge Fermentation Chamber

Carlscan26

Recipes 

Hey congrats!

Small piece of advice: put some holes in that plywood over the hot side coils - that heat needs to go somewhere and right now its trapped in a box ...

You'll get better efficiency out of the unit if the hot side can "breath"

I know this may not make sense since in the original fridge it was sandwiches in the foam around the chamber too. But in my experience they're closer to the outer skin which ends up acting like a radiator. The plywood is not going to do that as well as the sheet metal of the original body.

Good luck!

Psych

Recipes 

That's a good call. Originally I was intending on putting them all in a metal box of some sort, and having a fan on them that kicked in with the compressor. I'll see what I can do on that and still have it look OK, thanks for the feedback!

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Single vessel E-BIAB setup

Donor Fridge Fermentation Chamber

Psych

Recipes 

So on this note, I took some measurements of the fridge running in it's pictured state, no mods, just plywood sides. It was running for maybe 2 hours solid, the compressor was hot as heck and the heat dispersion lines were really hot too. Like couldn't hold my hand on them for more than a second, compressor was too hot to touch for half a second.

The temperature in the walls of the unit was maybe 120f or so, maybe more, I couldn't get my probe in very far.

So I modded my front plywood panel, I put on some metal plates on the back of it (salvaged from that wine fridge), ones that had grills on them. Cut some holes in the plywood for those grills to vent through and my temps were down to about 110f on another similar test. Not good enough.

I then mounted two fans on the far right side, near the top, computer fans basically (from the wine fridge) and now my temps in the plywood walls don't go above 85f.

The compressor still gets hot, but not as much, and the lines are not as hot either. In fact, the unit cools faster too, it was a noticeable difference!

I'd like to still add a fan pointed directly at the compressor though.

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Single vessel E-BIAB setup

Donor Fridge Fermentation Chamber

cosmatics

Recipes 

Just wanted to say, great looking build, and very ingenious execution. You have my respect, thanks for sharing.

John

Psych

Recipes 

Thanks

Hoping I can give back a little by documented it as much as possible.

Boy does mail from China take forever or what, come on STC1000!

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Single vessel E-BIAB setup

Donor Fridge Fermentation Chamber

TBaGZ

Recipes 

Yeah, mine took about 2 weeks to get over the pond.

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I want to make beer!

Feurhund

Recipes 

I am using the guts from my Haier Kegerator to cool a larger under bar insulated chamber. Just started my dismantle and expect it to be easier as the radiator part is exposed. I will have to bend the black tube down a bit to fit it height wise though.

I am intensely paranoid and just wanted to know how delicate these tubes are. you bent them against a caulk tube, but how carefully. I am just having trouble tackling this part as i dont want to trash a perfectly good kegerator.

Any advice on technique etc. is appreciated and great build!

Carlscan26

Recipes 

I'm not sure you don't have some coils in the right side of the fridge - right side in that picture, left from the front. Check those copper lines from the compressor and make sure there aren't some going into that wall.