ICWiener
Well-Known Member
I'll just say it up front: I know nothing about refrigerator/freezer technology, so any help is greatly appreciated.
I bought a chest freezer off of craigslist a year and a half ago. It's biiiig. I haven't measured, but it's probably bigger than 20 cubic ft. It'll hold ten 5 gallon carboys at once. Anyway, lately it's taking significantly longer to bring my beer temps down. It's still getting cold, and ice still builds up on the wall when it's cooling for more than an hour. So it's working for now...but the problem is that if I put a carboy of wort in at, say, 70 degrees it takes almost 8 hours to get it down to 64.
I have my Ranco set at a 1 degree range. The freezer used to be able to knock that one degree back down in 10 minutes. Now it takes 20-30. And it sounds a little funny. It still has it's normal hum, but it also kind of sounds like there's running water in there or something. It's hard to describe.
So, is it dying? Should I be looking for a new unit? Or is it just losing efficiency with age? I really don't want to buy a new one because I know that I'll never find another one this big for a decent price, but I'm not going back to swamp cooling!
Thanks in advance for any help or advice.
I bought a chest freezer off of craigslist a year and a half ago. It's biiiig. I haven't measured, but it's probably bigger than 20 cubic ft. It'll hold ten 5 gallon carboys at once. Anyway, lately it's taking significantly longer to bring my beer temps down. It's still getting cold, and ice still builds up on the wall when it's cooling for more than an hour. So it's working for now...but the problem is that if I put a carboy of wort in at, say, 70 degrees it takes almost 8 hours to get it down to 64.
I have my Ranco set at a 1 degree range. The freezer used to be able to knock that one degree back down in 10 minutes. Now it takes 20-30. And it sounds a little funny. It still has it's normal hum, but it also kind of sounds like there's running water in there or something. It's hard to describe.
So, is it dying? Should I be looking for a new unit? Or is it just losing efficiency with age? I really don't want to buy a new one because I know that I'll never find another one this big for a decent price, but I'm not going back to swamp cooling!
Thanks in advance for any help or advice.