Refrigerators, (fermentation chambers), used in cold conditions.

[Surly]

I am converting one of my farms outbuildings to a dedicated brewery.

I use temperature controlled refrigerators for fermenting my 15 gallon batches.

Living in Wisconsin the winters can get cold and it is my understanding that refrigerators have a hard time operating in freezing conditions. I do not want to heat the whole building all winter long.

I have thought of one solution and am asking if this will work.

Within my brewspace I would create a well insulated, "closet". This closet would contain my refrigerator as well as other pieces of brewing equipment I do not want to have freeze up, ie pumps, star san etc. I would use either a space heater or an electric baseboard heater to control the temperature in the closet.

Anybody see a problem with this, or, have another idea?

 

[m3n00b]

As long as you can keep that area above the temps you wish to ferment at you should be fine.

 

[Yoss]

I was looking at trying to put a chest freezer fermentation chamber outside in the winter (down to -20 F here is not unusual) and just heating the inside of it. Sounds like you aren't just going to stick it outside like I wanted to, but I'll tell you what I got out of my research anyway.
If you don't build some kind of heated area, or your heating for that area fails you run into big problems. The refrigerant fluid will freeze at about -15 F at atmospheric pressure. Best case scenario is your freezer will simply not function, then it will resume its functions once the fluid has liquified. Sometimes you can get away with this but it will eventually damage something. The other concern is condensing the refrigerant before it runs through the compressor and ruining it. The freezer manufacturer would not let me correspond with any of their engineers and all I got was a lame customer service rep that said they recommended having the ambient temperature above 55 F.

An insulated closet sounds like a good solution to me, I wish my brew area could accommodate that.

 

[gwaugh]

I'm in Ohio and I have a refrigerator and a chest freezer in my garage. The garage is insulated but not heated. They have been out there for at least 4-5 years and both still run great. The garage is attached to the house which could be providing it with more insulation value and possibly a small amount of heat.

 

[bucfanmike]

i have run a chest freezer in a shed in Northern MN for several years. Hasnt given me any problems. I use it to ferment in and keep a small ceramic heater inside to maintain proper temps using a dual stage temp controller

 

[Yoss]

Mike,
Do you know what wattage your heater is? Are you using any additional insulation? Do you have a fan in there? You must occasionally hit -20F so if it works for you I may give it a go, I just dont want to undersize my heater and have a disaster. Thanks in advance for any info.