boywonder
Member
I've been brewing ales for about 6 months now and I'm itching to try lagering. All the builds I've seen take a fridge/freezer and raise the normal operating temperature of the fridge from the mid 30's F to fermentation temperature. Similarly the freezer which normally operates around 0 F is raised to the mid 30's F for lagering. I will be buying a used fridge for my lagering sytem, but I'd like to maintain the original operating temperatures of the refrigerator so that I can store fresh and frozen foods that spill over from my main fridge while also lagering.
What I'm proposing is to build a 3rd chamber right onto the side of the fridge out of plywood/foam that would be kept at fermenting temperatures. The temperature in the fermenting chamber would be maintained by cutting a hole into the side of the freezer and mounting a fan and damper which would be controlled by a temperature controller. This way, I would be able to ferment in the new chamber and lager in the refrigerator. I would also be able to keep frozen items in the freezer and some fresh foods in the fridge.
Has anyone ever seen a build like this? My only real concern is whether the refrigerator will be able to handle the additional cooling load of the 3rd chamber. The system will be kept in my basement which has an ambient temperature in the range of 55 - 65F year round. I suppose one other thing would be if there is typically anything in the sidewall of a freezer that I should avoid damaging.
Hopefully I've described the system in enough detail for you to picture it. If you're having a hard time with it I can post a sketch or something. Let me know what your thoughts are!
What I'm proposing is to build a 3rd chamber right onto the side of the fridge out of plywood/foam that would be kept at fermenting temperatures. The temperature in the fermenting chamber would be maintained by cutting a hole into the side of the freezer and mounting a fan and damper which would be controlled by a temperature controller. This way, I would be able to ferment in the new chamber and lager in the refrigerator. I would also be able to keep frozen items in the freezer and some fresh foods in the fridge.
Has anyone ever seen a build like this? My only real concern is whether the refrigerator will be able to handle the additional cooling load of the 3rd chamber. The system will be kept in my basement which has an ambient temperature in the range of 55 - 65F year round. I suppose one other thing would be if there is typically anything in the sidewall of a freezer that I should avoid damaging.
Hopefully I've described the system in enough detail for you to picture it. If you're having a hard time with it I can post a sketch or something. Let me know what your thoughts are!
