Great! Since you have experience with this, it gives me some confidence to try it out. I originally envisioned doing this on top of a chest freezer, but my carpentry skills are pretty basic and it seem intimidating. When I saw your thread, I figured it would cut out a lot of the carpentry/insulation issues (plus where I am at it seems like cheap fridges are easier to get on CL than chest freezers). Now, I gotta convince the SWMBO...
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"If you're not the lead dog, the view never changes..."
If you find good sources for the pieces for your build (battery operated thermostats etc.) I would love to hear about it. I posted early in this thread HERE about having trouble finding my wiring diagram. After contacting a few service providers and directly to the manufacturer I've concluded I'm not going to get my hands on the wiring. Thus I'm apprehensive about taking on the wiring. Your approach seems more manageable.
I'm looking forward to Pics and details of your build.
__________________ Greg
SouthPaw Brewing Co.
"Stay with the beer. Beer is continuous blood. A continuous lover." — Bukowski
Southpaw - well all it is right now is an idea (lifted from the ingenuity and hard work of several other folks) and a plan. My biggest hurdle right now is convincing the SWMBO to let me put a 2nd fridge in our garage. Gotta bide my time until there's a toy she really wants and work a trade off.
As I envision it, there is not much wiring to deal with. Cheap thermistat's for house a/c-heater uses are plentiful (most have a AA battery backup if your power goes out; in my case the batts would be the only power, replaced as needed) - they can be had for $30-$40 each. Then its just a matter of getting your hands on some 12v wall warts from old electronic equipment laying around and splicing the wires to the power supply of the thermistat and connecting some computer fans (I happen to already have 2 from dead server box) to the fan control connector on the thermistat - easy. The hardest wiring would be locating the thermister on the thermistat's electronics board so you can solder it out with a solder pen and re-solder it to long extension wires to reach your fermenting vessel. That's all the wiring.
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"If you're not the lead dog, the view never changes..."
I'm thinking of going with your idea but just make the freezer side the side for chillin cornies and crash cooling carboys and the refrigerator side for fermenting ales. One thermostat and one ranco controller are better for my budget.
If you mounted the thermostat within the refrigerator side could you forgo "locating the thermister on the thermistat's electronics board so you can solder it out with a solder pen and re-solder it to long extension wires to reach your fermenting vessel" since the thermostat would be reading the actual temp of the ale fermentation side? I maybe way off here let me know what you think
__________________ Greg
SouthPaw Brewing Co.
"Stay with the beer. Beer is continuous blood. A continuous lover." — Bukowski
Southpaw - well first off, this is all just ideas and plans right now, so I cannot speak from actual experience. With that caveat, it seems to me that that you can put one of those cheapo aquarium sticky thermomter strips on the side your fermentation vessel to measure its temp. You could then drop the thermistat temp to below your target fermentation temp (I'd would guess something like 8-10 degrees lower when fermentation is very active, less as the fermentation activity and resulting heat reduce). Thru trial/error I imagine you will be able to zero in on where you need to set the thermistat temp to get your fermentation vessel to a certain temp within a few degrees variation. The trade off I would think is that you gotta pay more attention to your fermentation (and open the fridge door alot more) and adjust on the fly as opposed to setting it and leaving it, along with more temp swings depending on how much attention you do pay to making adjustments. I'd guess it would work pretty well without the thermister extension, which is really more for convenience than any anticipation on my part that it would make that dramatic of a difference in the final product.
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"If you're not the lead dog, the view never changes..."
Got a question about those fridges with the fridge on top and freezer on the bottom (I think they are called "French Door" style fridges). Does anyone know if there are there freon or electical lines running inside the shelf that seperates the freezer from the fridge? I know that on side-by-side fridges, there is nothing inside the wall seperating the fridge & freezer; wondering if its the same deal with bottom freezer models. I wanna be able to rip that bottom shelf out to make a fermentor.
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"If you're not the lead dog, the view never changes..."
Got a question about those fridges with the fridge on top and freezer on the bottom (I think they are called "French Door" style fridges). Does anyone know if there are there freon or electical lines running inside the shelf that seperates the freezer from the fridge? I know that on side-by-side fridges, there is nothing inside the wall seperating the fridge & freezer; wondering if its the same deal with bottom freezer models. I wanna be able to rip that bottom shelf out to make a fermentor.
This might get you in trouble as I Sawzalled one apart that had a R12 leakout failure within the fridge exterior walls so not repairable a total loss, it also had cooling lines between the top and bottom compartments I sawed thru and exposed. We kept the compressor with everything else for future replacement parts.
KB; i'll have to rethink and save this 7 year old side by side fridge with the doors off it sitting outside under a tarp airing out. The renters were heavy smokers is why I replaced the stinky fridge, you've resparked my intrest in saving it vs trashing it thanks. The center divider wall and doors sealing was my main issue for not chopping into it in the past. Like you posted a little light Dremel surgery exploring what's hidden inside the divider wall first. White roof flashing sealer woild waterproof any exposed open cell foam insulation. This can be the fermenting cooler with me only needing a keezer for the family room. I'll make space in the shop for this side by side as all my storage space areas are maxed out.
Has anyone done this with a "top-freezer" model refrigerator? I have a decent-sized old one I could use (maybe 22 cu. ft.?), but I have no idea what is in the panel that separates the fridge from the freezer compartments. If it's just insulation (as in BK's side-by-side fridge) I would think cutting it out would work fine in a top freezer model as well. I'd just rather not destroy the fridge if it definitely won't work for some reason...
Thanks to BK for an inspiring thread!
Yes, I am interested to find out if this can be done as well...does anyone know? I don't want to pass up a good fridge that isnt side by side if I can do it just the same with the other style fridge with freezer on top.
BK, what was the CF of this fridge? How is she holding up for you? I am looking for something like this for Hawaii.
It was a 27 cu. ft. fridge. I used it as a deep freezer for about 6 months until it died. Good for fermentation and lagering, bad for deep freezer Oh well.
I transferred the components to a new smaller fridge for my new smaller setup.
I will likely redo this project when I up my system volume again down the road.
Oh well.
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