I'm in the process of building a fairly large bar in my basement and I've come across some ideas of building in an insulated box for use as a cold box to store my corny kegs along with various other cold items such as bottled beer and mixers.
The plans I've come across actually use a small dorm style fridge connected to the side of the built in cold box for refrigeration. With small computer fans placed in the fridge to circulate the cool air into the insulated cold box because the natural cooling from the cold plates in the fridge doesn't cause enough convection to move the cold air out of the fridge very far. I've done quite a bit of reading up on this and have heard of quite a few success stories.
Now for my dilemma... The cold box I'd like to build is a bit bigger than what I have plans for, thus needing a larger cooling or chilling/cold plate to keep it cold enough throughout. I was wondering if anyone has had any experience of tearing down an old full size working fridge or smaller chest freezer to harvest the cold plates, compressor, and other components to mount inside the cold box for cooling purposes.
I would like to be able to have enough room for 3 corny's and a shelf half way for storing bottled beer and various other mixers inside this cold box. I'm figuring the width dimensions would need to be around 36" or so and the depth is only possible in being about 27".
Any input would be appreciated. I'll post up the build process once this is all figured out.
The plans I've come across actually use a small dorm style fridge connected to the side of the built in cold box for refrigeration. With small computer fans placed in the fridge to circulate the cool air into the insulated cold box because the natural cooling from the cold plates in the fridge doesn't cause enough convection to move the cold air out of the fridge very far. I've done quite a bit of reading up on this and have heard of quite a few success stories.
Now for my dilemma... The cold box I'd like to build is a bit bigger than what I have plans for, thus needing a larger cooling or chilling/cold plate to keep it cold enough throughout. I was wondering if anyone has had any experience of tearing down an old full size working fridge or smaller chest freezer to harvest the cold plates, compressor, and other components to mount inside the cold box for cooling purposes.
I would like to be able to have enough room for 3 corny's and a shelf half way for storing bottled beer and various other mixers inside this cold box. I'm figuring the width dimensions would need to be around 36" or so and the depth is only possible in being about 27".
Any input would be appreciated. I'll post up the build process once this is all figured out.
