New fridge recommendations?

[Mutt98]

So, my garage fridge bit the dust and I’m able to start from scratch so to speak. I typically use it as a regular refrigerator, but on occasion I’ve turned it into a ferm chamber for lagers and cold storage for kegs to age or while waiting for room to open up in the keezer. Here’s the question: should I go with a regular stand up fridge/freezer or would you recommend a temp controlled chest freezer? Pros/cons of each in your experience? “Ideal” setup?

 

[hottpeper13]

I was gifted a side by side and plugged it into a controller set to 33*. The freezer side at 33* has room for 3 cornies (mine has CO2 lines) and the cold naturally makes the fridge side 50* or so. I have a heat mat and an insulation wrap for ales and the lagers ferment on the bottom at ~50*. All the kegs spend 2-4 weeks lagering(ales too), and they're carbed and ready to serve clear beer when space opens in the 4 tap kegerator. Beats the hell outa lifting full kegs over the 2 x 6 spacer on a chest freezer, and you get a 2 for 1.

 

[Mutt98]

I was gifted a side by side and plugged it into a controller set to 33*. The freezer side at 33* has room for 3 cornies (mine has CO2 lines) and the cold naturally makes the fridge side 50* or so. I have a heat mat and an insulation wrap for ales and the lagers ferment on the bottom at ~50*. All the kegs spend 2-4 weeks lagering(ales too), and they're carbed and ready to serve clear beer when space opens in the 4 tap kegerator. Beats the hell outa lifting full kegs over the 2 x 6 spacer on a chest freezer, and you get a 2 for 1.

Dang. That sounds like a good setup. My old fridge is a side by side and I’m not even sure I could fit two cornies on the freezer side. I could barely fit two on the fridge side with a 5lb CO2 tank. If there was a fermenter in there, no room for anything else. I was thinking an over/under would give me more fridge space, but I’ll take a good look at a properly sized side by side.

 

[Witherby]

So, my garage fridge bit the dust and I’m able to start from scratch so to speak. I typically use it as a regular refrigerator, but on occasion I’ve turned it into a ferm chamber for lagers and cold storage for kegs to age or while waiting for room to open up in the keezer. Here’s the question: should I go with a regular stand up fridge/freezer or would you recommend a temp controlled chest freezer? Pros/cons of each in your experience? “Ideal” setup?

In addition to our kitchen fridge (which has no beer anything except for a few cans) I have an old top freezer fridge in the basement that is my beer fridge and holds 3 kegs (I just use picnic taps), cans and bottles, yeast, etc. And hops in the freezer. Just for yeast and hops I feel like I need a consistent fridge and freezer. And for the sake of my marriage that is not in the kitchen fridge. And it is often handy to have extra freezer space for food.

And then I have a temp controlled chest freezer in the garage that is my fermentation chamber that also doubles as a beer fridge when we are having an outdoor party. But mostly used as a fermentation chamber and lagering chamber. This is a large chest freezer and I wish it were one of the smaller ones. But either way I like having a dedicated fermentation chamber that doesn't screw up my hop and yeast storage in the fridge.