mini fridge collar

I have this mini fridge Magic Chef Appliance -- Product Detail Page

and it fits a single corny keg (without the door closed) but I have two. I was thinking of making a collar to make it longer by six inches to a foot, same height and width. How long can i make this collar and it still be able to keep it cool?

Was thinking to make it of plywood with a layer of sheet insulation on the inside

 

anyone? I can draw a mockup if that helps if you dont understand.

 

this has been done before, i'd make it as small as you can where you can insulate it and still fit your 2 cornies. realize that the cooling system of such a small fridge is not built to cool such a large thermal mass, so temp changes will be slow when you put 5 gallons of room temp beer into it. it won't cool in an hour.

 

could i double the size of the minifridge? i cuold use two pieces thick of insulation. I would like to be able to hold 4 if possible. And is there anything i can do to help it cool down quicker?

 

anything more than 2 corny's is going to be risking going beyond what the fridge can cool. you can build it bigger, but it only has so much coolant and so big of a heat exchanger plate to cool with. like i said, keeping things at a temp is easy, it's bringing them down to temp that hurts.

for the amount of time and energy you're going to spend expanding a mini fridge to a size it can't cool, get on craigslist and find a cheap/free fridge and put a temp controller in it. my regular sized upright fridge holds 4 carboys or like 8 corny's without a top shelf that could probably double the capacity.

 

I used a mini fridge and extended the front of it by 24". I installed two small 4" fans on the inside to help circulate air and used 1" insulation in the inside and sealed all of the seams with flashing tape. I do not use it as a kegerator but as a fermentation chamber. I have done cold crashes in this chamber at 35 degrees F. It does kick the compressor on more often as would be expected. Before I added the two fans it would run constantly to stay at cold crashing/serving temps. It can be done, just make sure you have something to keep the air moving inside.

 

I just finished putting a collar on my mini fridge. It ended up adding 12 inches to the the front of my Sanyo. It now holds 3 kegs. Im going to be using it as a kegerator. I can post pics if you're interested.

I definitely agree with MrMeans on the fan part. It is a must.

 

I built a fermentation chamber based on the same concept -- basically created a "porch" that probably doubled the volume of the fridge by enclosing the whole thing in some plywood (actually OSB). I lined it with 2" closed-cell foam insulation and taped off the seams.

I was wondering if I could get it down to lagering temps, so before I added temp control I kicked the fridge on at the lowest setting and stuck a pint glass of water and a half-full 5 gallon bucket on the floor. Within a few hours, it froze the water in the glass and created an ice film on top of the bucket.

I'd say if it's well insulated and you have good thermal mass in there (like a corny keg), a typical mini fridge should be more than powerful enough to do what you want.

 

Here are some pics of what I did. I got the idea from someone in the "show off your fermentor" thread:

 

That is awesome. well my problem is solved. thanks for the great idea

 

I used 1/2 inch cabinet grade plywood and 1 inch sheet foam insulation for the collar. I have a 4 inch fan to circulate the air.



I got the faucets and drip pan for X-Mas so I built the coffin tower. The tower is built the same way as the collar. I may add a fan to circulate more air into the collar.

 

Not to resurrect a year old thread for nothing...but...

Dahoov,

Your fridge looks exactly like the one I have been thinking about adding a collar to.

Can you give me any more information to help ease my process?

Thank you,

 

So I don't hijack this thread more than I already did I sent you a PM.