Stripping a fridge to make a chill chamber?

[Jakeintoledo]

Maybe this is a silly question, but has anyone pulled all the cooling components of a fridge, and incorporated them into a customized, highly-insulated chamber to chill lagers, beer, kegs, etc?

This question comes on the heels of making a small chill chamber for layering, and my next logical step would be to make a bigger one with some sort of means of electric cooling.

 

[wilserbrewer]

Yes...it has been done. I recall a guy did it and created an old wooden icebox style cabinet. It was a work of art! It is a bit of work and is not easy by any means, but with skills and tools it can be the ultimate ferm chamber or kegerator. Unless your goal is to build something beautiful, it is far easier to just use a prebuilt unit.

 

[crane]

I did and it turned out great. I need to get around to making a build thread but here are a few pics. It turned out to be a much larger project than I originally anticipated. The floor on the inside is a drawer that slides out so I can easily lift the carboys onto the top of the chamber for racking.

EDIT: OK finally made a build thread. Here it is.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f51/minifridge-fermentation-chamber-337402/

 

[bstux]

It can be done.

I am still in the process of finishing mine. That said being a perpetually broke college student means I can only work on it when I have extra cash, so yours would probably go faster. The lines in the back(and sides and top depending on your model) are a pain to excavate from the insulation and later bend without kinking. When it is all said and done, I will have spent more than a comparable chest freezer build(that includes a cabinet). On the plus side I ha e very large doors in the front, so if I want to put in a 1/2 bbl keg I won't throw out my back by loading through the top. I chose to use the components from a dorm/mini fridge because I had one on hand. I should note I left the back of my build uncovered for the time being in case the harvested part crap out I can slip in a small window AC unit.

 

[carlisle_bob]

Hi

At least consider that any line you kink / crack / break is pretty much the end of the road. There is no cheap way to fix that sort of thing on a small refrigeration system. On a modern fridge, the cooling lines are likely buried pretty deep in the fridge walls. On some you might get lucky with the "hot side" lines.

Not saying you shouldn't do it. Just think it through first.

Bob

 

[Jakeintoledo]

Thanks for the input, gents.

I've thought of a variety of permutations of this project. I'm probably going to hold off until I move into my new house, whenever the hell that is, but I wanted to see if this was ever done. I envision doing a permanent installation in the corner of my house, and even the idea of a walk-in is tempting. In that case, I might pop for an industrial chiller.

Unless I swerve into a cheaply-found fridge, then I might just say screw it and go for it.

 

[ThreeDogsNE]

I got a cheap Craiglist fridge ($50). Then I got another one ($60). Look for the ones with the freezer on top, as getting more than a Corney into a side by side requires major work. I had to look a little to find ones that would hold my plastic conicals. I also had to knock some boards together to make level floors when I put carboys in them. The drawback is that this necessitates two temperature controllers for the two fridges, and they need to be plugged in on different circuits. The advantage is I can have different temperatures in the two, so I can have lager in one and an ale in the other with no more challenge than setting the temp on the PID for each fridge. Compared to an industrial chiller, this is pretty cheap.

 

[jaz5833]

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f51/fermentation-chamber-292242/
Here is the thread outlining my take and build on the DIY mini-fridge / Ferm chamber.