Side by side refrigerator modifications

[SlitheryDee]

So I've got 3 refrigerators in my brewery now. Two of them are minifridges which I have earmarked as fermentation chambers. The other one is the old side-by-side refrigerator/freezer combo that used to be in my house before we got our new fridge.

I know a common modification to a side by side fridge is to turn the refrigerator side into a fermentation chamber and use the freezer side as cold storage, but since I already have enough fermentation chambers I was wondering if it was possible to simply make both sides into cold storage.

The simplest way I can think to do that is to use two temperature controllers. One would have it's probe in the freezer side and the power cord from the entire refrigerator would be plugged into it. The other one would have it's probe in the refrigerator side and would control one or more fans mounted in the wall between the freezer and the refrigerator side. If I set the fans up in a kind of push/pull configuration I feel I could probably maintain both chambers at close to the same temperature without much problem.

My issue is that, looking at other's builds, it seems like they went through a great deal more trouble than what I'm thinking about doing. They usually delved into the wiring of the fridge itself, splicing lines from their controllers at various points in the fridge's electrical system. Is there some reason that it's necessary to muck about in the fridge's wiring? I was just planning on using two of the simplest inkbird controllers I could find. The kind that plug into the wall and have outlets for whatever devices you want to control. I would just fish the probes and the wiring from them into whatever access points I could make or find in the refrigerator and then let them do their jobs. I might have to remove the stock fan that controls the refrigerator side temperature and cut some holes for my new fan(s), but that was about as far as I was going to go.

The other option would be to just leave the refrigerator stock. I already thought of ways I could make use of the freezer side to store hops, yeast, and other volatile brewing ingredients. I could also freeze water to aid in cooling wort on brew days. Then I have the refrigerator side for cold storage, which is still far more room than I had in either minifridge. I dunno. What would you guys do?

 

[pshankstar]

I recently converted a side by side as a kegerator and fermentation chamber. It was a lot of work and I couldn't have done it without someone with an EE background! If I was in your situation where I already have enough room for fermentation chambers, I would just use the fridge side as a kegerator. I would keep the freezer side to have extra freezer space. That's just my opinion given the situation.

 

[SlitheryDee]

I recently converted a side by side as a kegerator and fermentation chamber. It was a lot of work and I couldn't have done it without someone with an EE background! If I was in your situation where I already have enough room for fermentation chambers, I would just use the fridge side as a kegerator. I would keep the freezer side to have extra freezer space. That's just my opinion given the situation.

Yeah I think I'm leaning that way at the moment. I currently have 3 working fridges in my brew shed. I hate the idea of reducing that number through some screw up when I can think of quite a few uses for them in their current condition.