fridge or freezer?

[Louz]

I've been keeping my eyes open for something I can use for fermentation and cold crashing.
Probably a dumb question but do I want a fridge or a freezer?
I would think a fridge, since I dont want to freeze the beer. But reading threads around here most people say they have freezers.
Will either one do the same job as long as they are hooked up to a temp controller?

 

[IslandLizard]

Either will work fine. Pick the right size for your available space and the ferm equipment that goes inside.

Now some fridges will not chill below 36-38°F, unless you bypass/override the internal thermostat. For cold crashing and lagering, you'll want 32-33F. Sometimes a little lower even.

 

[jalc6927]

Get a temp control unit and it won’t matter what you use much

 

[Chris Walker]

A couple of things to consider....
1. To get good temperature stability you will need to have an external controller regardless of fridge or freezer.
2. A freezer gets you more cooling power - you'll have no problem getting the lower temps that some fridges might struggle to achieve.
3. Chest freezers are usually cheaper to buy for a given size, and are usually more efficient to run.
4. A lot of upright freezers have the cooling lines in the shelves - ie you can't remove them so no good for big carboys / fermenters. Need to look out for that.
5. Freezers generally don't deal with moisture as well as fridges (which are designed to cope with it.) Too much moisture is not a good long term situation but it can be mitigated with a dehumidifier - wireless mini types are good.
6. What do you ferment in? Glass carboys are heavy to lift in / out of a chest freezer. Also if you use a fermenter with a spigot/tap at the bottom or conical then an upright fridge or freezer is nice as you can cold crash at the top of the unit and still have enough space to get the keg or bottling bucket underneath. This removes the need to disturb the fermentor after it has settled out which greatly improves the clarity of the transfer.
7. With either choice you will want to add some form of airflow - generally an old PC fan works great to even out the temp across the whole interior. This also works well in conjunction with the dehumidifier.