Fridge/Freezer setups

I recently got into homebrewing after reading about it and toying with th idea for a year. I was looking for some input from folks who have used fridge/freezer setups to lager beer or cold condition etc.

If you have:

1) How much did it cost you for the fridge and parts,

2) How did you go about the conversion?

I am considering something like this myself. I have a feeling that pretty soon I will need another fridge for lagering/bottled batches. I have my first batch conditioning now and as soon as I have extra money I'll start on my next batch. In an ideal situation I would like to have a batch bottled, one in the fridge and a kit on it's way to the house. That said I think at the very least another fridge is neccesary. The old lady hates the idea though...


Anyway, thanks for your feedback in advance...


Cheers!

Paddy-

Paddyboy said:

...The old lady hates the idea though...

Click to expand...

Then she's going to hate what I'm going to say.

I converted our spare fridge that we already had in the laundry room to a kegerator. As I recall the conversion kit cost somewhere between $150 / $200. That was a couple years ago though.

For fermenting/lagering I have a 8.8cf Kenmore chest freezer in the garage that I got on sale at Sears for $200. The Johnson Controls digital external controller was $80 or so from The Beverage Factory.

Keep an eye on Craigs List as you can usually find a pretty good deal.

Welcome to the forums and good luck!

You mentioned lagering, so you will need to dedicate one fridge or freezer to this task as it will be occupied for a couple of months and often longer for one batch. You can frequently find used refrigerators and freezers for little or nothing if you keep your eyes open. You will need a controller that will cost from $50 to $80 or so depending on which one you choose.

Ideally, you will want to acquire mutiple refrigerators and/or freezers if you have the money and the space. Controlling fermentation temperatures is one of the keys to making good beer. Old fridges are great for this purpose.

Then there is the serving issue. You can make a kegerator out of either a fridge or a freezer. I got buy using a fridge for serving, but without faucets installed. That came much later when I added a collar to a small freezer that will hold four kegs and has four taps mounted through the collar.

I have a upright side-by-side fridge that I use as my lager/fermentation chamber. I have a build thread linked in my sig.

I am very happy with my setup, I do primary fermentation and secondary fermentation in my chamber, then I have a keezer that I serve my beer out of. If I am lagering, I lager int he keezer so my fermentation chamber is free. This way I should be able to keep the pipeline rolling without needing mutliple fridges.

The fridge you should find for free on CL. It may take a couple weeks but a nice one will pop up. The rest of my parts cost about $100.00 all told with shipping.

Good luck.

Thanks for the feedback guys! Been checking craiglist but haven't found one yet for cheap or free. I think I have a summer project on my hands:rockin:

Would an upright freezer work do ya think?

Kelvinator freezer

Depends if the shelves have the coolant lines run through them or not. If not then I don't see any reason why you couldn't remove the shelves and customize it for buckets, carboys, or even a conical. If it does then you'd need to see if you could bend them up/down towards the back without breaking them. If you break/crack them then you'll be left with just a big box which would suck.

Good luck PB!