Whats the IDEAL fermentation fridge...

... That will fit one carboy/bucket only with room for the airlock ( I figure that's equal to about 27" inside hight) and will handle lager temps?

My thought is this, I have a chest freezer I use mostly as a fermentation cellar. I also like to do lagers. You cant beat the refreezerator style fermenting chamber for accurate temperature control. The trouble is that the last doppel bock I did had to lager for 6 months.... If you have a big freezer that means a lot of wasted space for a very long time. I brewed 4 ales in that lager phase and only used the freezer to cold crash a couple of them but otherwise there is tons of wasted space.

My vision is having ~3 duplicate bar sized fridge or freezers on a rack each with its own front facing Love temp PID. No larger than they have to be and up high enough to easily be monitored and slip carboys in and out of?

Anybody out there know what I'm getting at? Does such a thing exist?

Subscribed! I have been searching for this as well and am interested to see what others have to say.

I just got a couple of dorm fridges. One was 35 bux and the other free. building a 5 inch collar for one, and the other, older model, I just bent the freezing element down next to the back and my fermenters fit fine, with airlock and all. Cheap and easy plus they stack. Reclaiming my small freezer for hops and yeast.

Pat

BK (big poster over in the electric section) detailed his reconstruction of a side-by-side refrigerator into a fermentation chamber. If I remember right, with shelves, he was able to fit 6 6.5 gal fermentors into a 25 cuft side by side after he knocked out the middle wall. Link is below

BK's Side by Side Build

BUMP. Someone know of a small freezer or dorm fridge model that will fit a carboy and airlock with no mods?

I have a Kenmore 5.1 cubic foot freezer that fits an ale pale with no mods, including airlock. I have not tried a carboy yet though. Running an ebay aquarium temperature controller, it works like a charm. It only fits one at a time though.

hamburgeler said:

I have a Kenmore 5.1 cubic foot freezer that fits an ale pale with no mods, including airlock. I have not tried a carboy yet though. Running an ebay aquarium temperature controller, it works like a charm. It only fits one at a time though.

Click to expand...

Thanks hamburgeler, I'll keep an eye out for one of these on Craigslist, but I'm still hoping someone out there has a dorm fridge sized unit they've had success using as a primary fermenter.