I figured I'd post my solution to the frost build-up problem I have had with my kegerator. I have an Edgestar Kegerator and despite rarely opening the door, I would wind up with up to 2 inches of ice build up on the rear evaporator coils/plate over time. Besides making the fridge compressor run much longer, when I finally did manually defrost it I was left with a flood on my floor. Btw, I tired the moisture absorbers that you plug in to "recharge" and it was pretty much useless.
I keep my fridge at about 47 to 48F, so it is not too cold to begin with. My solution was to plug my kegerator into an appliance timer (actually, I'm using a z-wave outlet controlled by Vera, but any programmable appliance timer will work). I have the timer set to power off at 3 am until 4 am. I used this as a starting point and haven't altered it since it works perfectly for me.
The idea is that the air temp inside the kegerator is sufficiently high to melt ice that begins to form on the evaporator. The frequent cycling of the compressor is what super chills the evaporator and keeps ice solid so it never has a chance to melt.
My results are that I have no accumulated ice on the evaporator - just a few frozen drips at the bottom edge where the condensate rolls off during my timed "defrost" cycle. these drips melt and refreeze each night as any build up melts and falls to the drain hole, with only a few drips still clinging to the evaporator by tension.
I used a data logger to monitor the air temp inside the kegerator and it shows a steady 48F until 3 am, then a climb to 51F until the cycle ends and the compressor resumes, then a pretty quick drop back to 48F. Obviously the beer temp doesn't vary anywhere close to a degree.
I thought about adding a fan aimed at the evaporator to accelerate the melting and keep the evaporator even dryer, but it proved to be unnecessary in my case.
If you keep you kegerator much colder aor open the door more often, you may need to adjust the off cycle duration, and/or add the fan.
I keep my fridge at about 47 to 48F, so it is not too cold to begin with. My solution was to plug my kegerator into an appliance timer (actually, I'm using a z-wave outlet controlled by Vera, but any programmable appliance timer will work). I have the timer set to power off at 3 am until 4 am. I used this as a starting point and haven't altered it since it works perfectly for me.
The idea is that the air temp inside the kegerator is sufficiently high to melt ice that begins to form on the evaporator. The frequent cycling of the compressor is what super chills the evaporator and keeps ice solid so it never has a chance to melt.
My results are that I have no accumulated ice on the evaporator - just a few frozen drips at the bottom edge where the condensate rolls off during my timed "defrost" cycle. these drips melt and refreeze each night as any build up melts and falls to the drain hole, with only a few drips still clinging to the evaporator by tension.
I used a data logger to monitor the air temp inside the kegerator and it shows a steady 48F until 3 am, then a climb to 51F until the cycle ends and the compressor resumes, then a pretty quick drop back to 48F. Obviously the beer temp doesn't vary anywhere close to a degree.
I thought about adding a fan aimed at the evaporator to accelerate the melting and keep the evaporator even dryer, but it proved to be unnecessary in my case.
If you keep you kegerator much colder aor open the door more often, you may need to adjust the off cycle duration, and/or add the fan.
