Fridge controls for lagering

[Sir-Hops-A-Lot]

I am interested if anyone has ideas for getting my fridge to the right temp.
I have the Brewhouse Oktoberfest with the Wyeast liquid Oktoberfest yeast.
I know I should be fermenting the primary at 50F but even with the warmest settings I am at 40F. I have been able to get it around 45F by leaving the door open.
I'm wondering if I should just take the primary out of the fridge and ferment at room temp and then lager in the secondary where the low temps can easily be acheived.
Any thoughts are welcome

 

[worksnorth]

If you have a small electric heat blanket around you can put that in the fridge. If you put it on the lowest setting it'll warm the interior up enough that the fridge will have to kick on to cool it back down. I'm doing that in my fermentation chamber. I've also got a small fan in there to blow the air around so that it's the same temp everywhere in my chamber. This arrangement, used in conjunction with my Johnson temp controller, lets me ferment at any temp I want.
Cheers

 

[helibrewer]

If you have a small electric heat blanket around you can put that in the fridge. If you put it on the lowest setting it'll warm the interior up enough that the fridge will have to kick on to cool it back down. I'm doing that in my fermentation chamber. I've also got a small fan in there to blow the air around so that it's the same temp everywhere in my chamber. This arrangement, used in conjunction with my Johnson temp controller, lets me ferment at any temp I want.
Cheers

This basically what I do. I use a FermWrap on a second controller that has a probe in the wort (thermowell). The ferm chamber keeps the air temp around 40 and the FermWrap is set to maintain whatever ferm temp I want.

 

[jasonsbeer]

Look into the e-bay aquarium temperature controller build. Cheap, easy.

 

[tjwor]

Look into the e-bay aquarium temperature controller build. Cheap, easy.

Do this!! I built one recently, not hard to do, and fairly inexpensive. Gives you complete control over the temp!

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f51/ebay-aquarium-temp-controller-build-163849/