Guide to set internal chest freezer thermostat to >32F; Eliminate external control

[Clweed]

I just got a Kenmore 8.8cf black freezer and did the adjustment. The screw is behind some tape at the top to the thermostat.

I like my beer cold (36 degrees). I turned the screw 6.5 turns clockwise and its been holding steady with 2 five gallon kegs inside and the thermometer in a 16oz glass of water.

I picked up my Kenmore 8.8 yesterday, found the screw (thanks to your post) and turned 6.5 clockwise. it has been running all night and the temp is up and down by 22 deg. it was at 34 when I set the chefalarm monitor.

It is empty now but I have a few cornys that are scheduled for delivery today. I will fill them with water when they get here and see if the temp stabilizes a little.

 

[kupermanp]

I picked up my Kenmore 8.8 yesterday, found the screw (thanks to your post) and turned 6.5 clockwise. it has been running all night and the temp is up and down by 22 deg. it was at 34 when I set the chefalarm monitor.

It is empty now but I have a few cornys that are scheduled for delivery today. I will fill them with water when they get here and see if the temp stabilizes a little.

Mine has been rock steady at 36. You might want to put a cup of water in it and then take the water temp (this will be your beer temp) The air temp in mine varies quite a bit. Putting the full corneys in it will also give you a thermal load which will steady your temp. Just make sure to keep them in overnight before you take a temp so it reaches steady state.

One other thing to note is the regular dial thermostat will still work. From my experiments its about 2 degrees per number on the dial so if you get close with the screw you can "dial it in"

K

 

[Clweed]

Mine has been rock steady at 36. You might want to put a cup of water in it and then take the water temp (this will be your beer temp) The air temp in mine varies quite a bit. Putting the full corneys in it will also give you a thermal load which will steady your temp. Just make sure to keep them in overnight before you take a temp so it reaches steady state.

One other thing to note is the regular dial thermostat will still work. From my experiments its about 2 degrees per number on the dial so if you get close with the screw you can "dial it in"

K

Mine is dialed in to a consistent 38

Thanks for the tips

Lee

 

[Inkleg]

After getting my keezer dialed in at 39* pours, 6 turns clockwise on a 8.8cuft Kenmore. I needed a cellar for storing bottled, kegged and bulk aging beer.

12 clockwise turns on a 14cuft Kenmore turns it into a 50* cellar. It was either that or buy a house with a basement.

 

[Ps6fsu]

Holiday 7 cu ft bought from Lowes last weekend. Read this thread before I purchased in the hopes it would work. Unfortunately, I have adjusted the screw all the way in, and all the way out (or almost all the way), with the fine adjustment screw at both 1 and 7. Every setting still freezes water inside. Posted pictures of my thermostat below. The screw that I have been adjusting is on the top of the thermostat. I've looked all over for another one, but no luck. Any help?

I have this same thermostat and adjusted the wrong screw as well. I peeled off the sticker as hbrew71 said and found the correct one. Now I'm worried what I have done. Anyone know what the other screw is for?

 

[pinne65]

I'm in the keezer/fermention chamber building stage and have been looking all over for thermostat info. I will definitely try this out.

 

[Mikeymu]

Could the temperature be set as high as say 64F (18C) for storing demijohns of wine?

I have no cellar so my plan is to insulate the inside of a brick outhouse and take the door off the fridge unit - with the heater element partitioned off of course.

 

[Stealthcruiser]

You'll just have to play with the particular thermostat and see what you wind up with.
I set one up for my Wife to use as a "cheese cave", and I think the temp range I shot for was 54-56 degrees F.
It holds it there very well!

Easy on the "coarse" adjustment screw!
Give it a complete turn, and come back to check your progress in a couple of hours.

In my case: clockwise rotation of the screw, raises the temp.

 

[Hoppity]

I think I 'll give this a try. Stubbed.

 

[The_Bishop]

Gave this a whirl on my ongoing keezer build with a GE 5 cubic foot model. With the coarse adjusting screw all the way in and the knob set for 1, after 24+ hours the 5 gallon bucket of water I placed in it was sitting around 33 degrees F. Too cold.

I'm going to see about replacing the thermostat with a refrigerator model that looks nearly the same. It's 9 bucks, so I guess I'll give it a try.

 

[rhm_pa]

This thread helped me with my 7cuft keezer build. The danby freezer I used had a single temperature set screw. I fiddled with it over a 36hr period and the freezer stays solid at 35*F. Now that my keezer is finished, I have a temperature probe on the outside with the wire routed in through the collar and the temperature sensor sitting in a bottle of water. Thanks!

 

[shemp]

Subscribe

 

[Bito401]

has anyone found this on model #FRF520 Igloo - 5.1 Cu. Ft. Chest Freezer?

 

[Stealthcruiser]

has anyone found this on model #FRF520 Igloo - 5.1 Cu. Ft. Chest Freezer?

Have ya' looked?..........:cross:

Is it a digital or mechanical thermostat?

Have you got a picture of it, with the knob or thermostat removed from it's mounting?

If it's a digital one, you might be S O L.

 

[Bito401]

I went a little too far backing mine out and it popped off. i don't think I'm going to be able to get it back in the screw. can a temp controller fix this or is the chest freezer broken?

 

[The_Bishop]

Look up the part number for the thermostat online. They're not expensive. I was able to find a refrigerator ranged thermostat for my keezer that made it possible to get it into the proper temperature range after the adjusting screw in my original thermostat wasn't able to get into the temperature range I wanted.

 

[BlurryEyed]

I went a little too far backing mine out and it popped off. i don't think I'm going to be able to get it back in the screw. can a temp controller fix this or is the chest freezer broken?

Is the freezer cooling at all? If so, you could just purchase this as an external controller:

http://amzn.to/1yv5uW9

I've heard of people backing the screw out all the way and then being able to repair it. It's a pain, but do-able.

Good luck!

 

[harry_the_face]

Yes you can replace it with a temp controller easy. That is what I did and it makes it a fridge or freezer depending on what you need it for. The wiring is pretty easy too.

 

[revansCAAD8]

Ours isnt a chest freezer but a Frigidaire Wine fridge. Use for fermentation with our Stc-1000 controller but only would get down into the 50's. Fine for ales but needed cooler for lagers so openned the inside thermostat and adjusted as mention on this thread. Wow now can get to freeze if wanted! Ps. Ours required a full turn counter clockwise. Thanks gang!

Robert

 

[lhommedieu]

...I know there are some models that go slightly above freezing and that will be my plan.

I'm interested in finding a model that will go slightly above freezing, as I would like to lager about 8 5 gallon corny kegs at a time.

A couple of questions for anyone following this thread, as well:

I'm curious if adjusting the thermostat to a higher temperature puts a heavier load on the compressor, in a manner similar to using an external thermostat would do? I would like the temperature to hold at 28F to 32F; given that this is a lower temperature, would that mean that there would be a lighter load on the compressor, once the thermal mass from the corny kegs had stabilized?

 

[fizgig]

Has anyone adjusted a Danby beverage cooler? I need mine colder for lagering.

 

[kiblerjd]

Man I'm glad i found this article. My POS Ranco died a few days ago and i found this thread while looking for a replacement. I have plenty of experience with stuff like this but i guess i assumed there was no course adjustment on the thermostat. That was a stupid assumption. I was lucky because my freezer was already around 40 degrees so all i did was plug it in and screw in the course adjustment until the freezer turned off. Had to do a little tweaking after that but very minor.

I'm curious if anyone has experience doing this with freezers kept in the garage. I live in NY so my garage is hot as balls in the summer and cold as balls in the winter. Because of the large thermal mass of the kegs i'm guessing it will not make any difference the freezer will just work harder in the summer.

Thanks again OP.

 

[fhu667]

I just purchased an Idylis 7 cubic foot freezer from lowes. The coarse screw needed to be turned clockwise about 10 revolutions which was also the limit, but that holds the temp at about 35 degrees.

 

[shemp]

In regards to keeping your freezer from getting cold as balls in the winter, I just put a 60 watt light bulb in mine to keep it at 40. Very scientific, I know.

 

[brewslinger]

I just purchased an Idylis 7 cubic foot freezer from lowes. The coarse screw needed to be turned clockwise about 10 revolutions which was also the limit, but that holds the temp at about 35 degrees.

While I am waiting for my controller to show up on the slow boat from China I might do this to my freezer.

Do you have any photos that you took when you adjusted your Idylis?

 

[brewslinger]

For anyone else that reads through this thread looking for an Idylis tweaking:

I had to remove two screws on the right side of the freezer to reach behind the grate to pop out the plastic tabs on the back of the front temperature adjustment panel. Once it was free of the freezer body you will find the screw on one of the sides of the wired device mounted to the front panel.

Once the coarse adjustment has been made what 'fine' adjustment is recommended? I set mine to the warmest setting as far as the knob on the front goes.

 

[brewslinger]

Just an update on my Idylis 7.1:

It is holding right around 32F or just under.
This isn't warm enough to prevent an open bucket from freezing up partially but a couple of bottles of water have not frozen even though they are sitting on the bottom of the freezer.
I would recommend an external temperature controller at this time for an Idylis just to ensure it stays the temperature that is desired.

 

[BlurryEyed]

Greetings all,

Having sold my Haier kegerator, I have upgraded to a Frigidaire Kegerator FRTB7B4EMB.

At it's lowest setting (below 1 on the thermostat controller) the liquid temp of a water bottle was around 42 degrees. Not nearly cold enough for my taste. The manual's recommended setting was 5. I can only imagine the flat warm beer this setting would have poured...

I managed to remove the thermostat controller housing (4 bolts), disconnect the main connector, and access the thermostat.

UPDATE: Removing the thermostat controller housing is not necessary. Just pull the knob off the front and the set screw is easily accessible. Lesson learned!

After removing the knob, I was able to remove the thermostat. I found the thermostat set screw just to the right of the knob. It was set at about the 10 o'clock position. I have since adjusted it counter-clockwise to the 8 o'clock.

Here's to hoping! I took some pics in the event someone want's to make this modifcation to their Frigidaire. I found that they use the same controller unit on most of their top-freezer units.

Will return back here with the results. If this doesn't work, I'll be purchasing/installing the ITC-1000 Temperature controller.

 

[BlurryEyed]

Has anyone adjusted a Danby beverage cooler? I need mine colder for lagering.

Never owned a Danby, but the rule of thumb is the set-screw is going to be somewhere nearby the thermostat controller.

On my old Haier, I had to remove the thermostat housing and found it. If you see the knob, I'd put money on it that the set screw is going to be within a few inches of the knob.

Happy hunting!

 

[fizgig]

I found what seems to be the screw, but it seems to spin around like it's stripped or something, I barely touched it. Maybe it's reverse threaded? Anyway, it didn't seem to affect the temp, it's still getting down to the same temp of 40ish, maybe I'll try screwing it to the left.