Qs about wine fridge as fermenting chamber

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heywolfie1015

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So, a buddy of mine wants to get rid of his wine fridge and I am first in line. The thermostat appears to be broken, so I am going to fix that and install the fridge in my place.

Two questions:

1) Anybody had any success using a wine fridge as a fermenting chamber? I already took my measurements and it will fit ale pails and carboys just fine. [EDIT: There is a glass shelf, so the bottom is flat.] Also, since it is supposed to keep a constant temperature, it seems well suited for the task.

2) Any suggestions on what to do with the glass door? Beggars can't be choosers, so I don't mind it much, but since I will likely only have room for the fridge in my kitchen, it's not ideal, light-wise. I suppose I could just hang a makeshift curtain to protect anything that is in a carboy, but that seems less than ideal.

Thanks for your help!
 
Just spray-paint the inside of the door black if you are worried about the light, or tape a piece of black garbage bag in there or something.

I would check on the operating temp range before you dive too far in. My wife has a wine fridge with an adjustable thermostat in the dining room. It does indeed keep a nice constant temp, but the range is something like 45F to 60F. (A little too chilly for fermenting ales.)
 
Bypass the thermostat and use an external temperature controller like http://cgi.ebay.com/HONEYWELL-INSER...emQQptZLH_DefaultDomain_0?hash=item5ad43c51d3 or something similar. Cover the probe with foam board piece cut to hold probe and tape or band that around fermenter. You will get a more accurate ferment that way.

Cut a piece of foam board insulation to cover the glass window so you block light and increase fridge thermal efficiency.

I used my wine fridge that way for awhile until I built something bigger. Now I use it as a Soda kegerator and it easily gets down into the 30F range. You can't do that with the stock thermostat.
 
a lot of wine fridges have UV protected glass--after all, you don't want your wine exposed to light either. So i would probably not be too concerned. But sticking some insulation to it would not be a bad idea.
 
I looked at those when I was checking out ferm chambers. I think most of the ones I was looking at were electric (no compressor = no hump), and they all gleefully said that they would reach temps of 45*...but in the fine print it said that it could reach 45 at an ambient temp of 65. So...if it's 90 in my apartment, I assume this thing could only get it down to 70. In short, check the fine print, some of them just don't have the stones, so to speak.
 
Is this a thermoelectric unit or a compressor based unit? A thermoelectric unit may not have the cooling capacity that you'd want if the ambient is very high. I use a thermoelectric wine cooler as a humidor, and if the ambient is at 80F, the thing struggles to keep the interior at 70F, and I don't have anything inside generating heat.
 
Yeah, a hump would mean a compressor, so you should be ok. It may still not have the cooling capacity of a real refrigerator, but it'll have a lot more than the thermoelectric units will.
 
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