Best way to heat my beer fridge

With the cold temperatures we've been having lately, my beer fridge, which sits in the garage, has been dropping in temperature. It's gotten close to freezing a couple of times. I've heated it a few times by putting a covered pot of hot water in there, but I want a lazier solution. I have a temperature controller I can switch into 'heat' mode. I was thinking about putting a light in the fridge, controlled by the temp controller. The one thing I'm worried about is if the light will have an effect on the bottles of beer in the fridge. Is using a light a good idea? Any other ideas?

First I would suggest unplugging the fridge or taking the fermenter out of there - it sounds like you garage is cold enough without any additional help.

If this doesn't do it, you can try buying one of those Brew Belts - http://www.northernbrewer.com/default/brew-belt.html

That is one of several models available, I think. It never gets that cold in SE GA so I have never used them, but I think several brewers here do use them with great results.

If you use an incandescent bulb, there shouldn't be any problem. I'd start with 25 watts.

What I've been using is an old harddisk & case. Pulls about 20 watts and has a built-in fan for circulation.

Hey fellow Coloradoan - this single digit high stuff sucks, doesn't it? We never even went below zero last Winter. I had to empty my beer fridge this morning and move it all inside. What a PITA...

I'm in the same situation. I use a small space heater with a thermostat. It kicks in for about 10 seconds an hour and does the job. I have also been looking at this http://www.williamsbrewing.com/BREWER_S_EDGE_SPACE_HEATER_P518.cfm Looks like it would do pretty much the same thing.

I bought one of these..
http://www.northernbrewer.com/brewi...ure-control/electric-fermentation-heater.html

but, instead of wrapping around the carboy I ty-wrapped it across the back of my fridge. Using a temp controller and a 110v computer size fan, I can keep the ambient temp in my fridge in the 70's if I wish. (Which I did last month with my Chimay clone. Basement was 52 and fridge was 73 near the end.) Not sure if it will work in a below freezing garage, but worth the thought.

There's two different ways to go about this. You can leave your controller on "cool" and add a separate but low wattage heat source like a 25 watt bulb. They'll fight it out a bit but hold the set temp well.

The other way is to use a controller capable of heat mode. Unplug the fridge and install the heat source on the controller. This can be a hair dryer, a small space heater, a reptile heat rock, light bulb (which can now be a higher wattage like 100w but shield the light from the carboy) etc.

Thanks, all. I should have been more clear on what I was doing--this is my finished beer fridge, not a fermenting fridge. I have bottles and a couple of cornies in there. I appreciate all of the ideas.

I do have some old junk hard drives lying around--great idea! I'm going try that, assuming I have an extra power supply somewhere.

jkarp, yeah, the weather is getting old. I'm okay with the cold if it means a lot of snow in the mountains, but that hasn't been the case in the areas I care about.

My washing machine froze last night! Got ice down the front. Fortunately, it's warmer in the brewery, not much; but enough.

Hammy71 said:

I bought one of these..
http://www.northernbrewer.com/brewi...ure-control/electric-fermentation-heater.html

but, instead of wrapping around the carboy I ty-wrapped it across the back of my fridge. Using a temp controller and a 110v computer size fan, I can keep the ambient temp in my fridge in the 70's if I wish. (Which I did last month with my Chimay clone. Basement was 52 and fridge was 73 near the end.) Not sure if it will work in a below freezing garage, but worth the thought.

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A+ this is what I do in my fridge. It was 40F the other day but my beer was sitting happy at 69F. I never thought of the fan idea, not sure if I would like it stirring all the air in there or not I might be worried about the bacterial dust getting stirred around. Maybe something maybe not but I have no problem with just the heater itself.

Brew-boy said:

A+ this is what I do in my fridge. It was 40F the other day but my beer was sitting happy at 69F. I never thought of the fan idea, not sure if I would like it stirring all the air in there or not I might be worried about the bacterial dust getting stirred around. Maybe something maybe not but I have no problem with just the heater itself.

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You would worry about air moving around your bottled beer?

loctones said:

With the cold temperatures we've been having lately, my beer fridge, which sits in the garage, has been dropping in temperature. It's gotten close to freezing a couple of times. I've heated it a few times by putting a covered pot of hot water in there, but I want a lazier solution. I have a temperature controller I can switch into 'heat' mode. I was thinking about putting a light in the fridge, controlled by the temp controller. The one thing I'm worried about is if the light will have an effect on the bottles of beer in the fridge. Is using a light a good idea? Any other ideas?

Click to expand...

This is exactly what i am doing at the moment. I am using the fridge for fermenters, not bottles. The first thing i found is that the fermenting beer keeps itself nice and cozy without any help from the light, which just sits back doing nothing as it's warm in there. I took out the fermenters the other day, and the lightbulb did it's job just fine. I also have a remote thermometer in the fridge so i can monitor the temp from inside the house.

Oh yes, this ghetto set-up means that i have a cord going between the fridge and the door seal causing a small break in the seal. This has not hurt anything.

Well, I didn't have an extra power supply, so I didn't get to try the hard drive idea. Instead, I went to the hardware store and got an extension cord, some 100W bulbs, and a light socket that would plug into the extension cord. I set the controller to heat mode and let it go. It heated up pretty quickly, and was back up at 44 this morning--the beer should be back at that temperature soon, as well.

I also have the cord breaking the seal on the fridge. I placed in a lower corner of the door. I figured the corner is where it would break the seal the least. Also, I figured the location of the broken seal would minimize air movement since the fridge is at a higher temp than the outside air.

Stickshaker said:

You would worry about air moving around your bottled beer?

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Not the same thing I have several possible openings on the conical.