Brainstorming brew fridge ideas

[Oneiroi]

So I'm 1 year and 16 brews into my brewing adventure, and thinking it's time to start looking at a brew fridge. I've thought through a few different options to fit my needs and have landed on a bit of an odd idea, I'm not sure if it's a good solution to my needs or just stupid :tinhat:

Some background...

I'll be moving into a new flat in the next month or two so won't have a garage/outdoor space anymore and want some way of controlling/cooling fermentation. Plus I also want to try kegging.

Space and budget are fairly limited so I've ruled out having two fridges or using a maxi cooler set-up (too noisey in an open kitchen/diner/living room). I thought about and american side-by-side style fridge where one is keggerator the other fermentation chamber but I think they are both too big, and too expensive.

The easiest option would be to have one fridge converted to keggerator and just take out the kegs when I want to use as fermenter. This seems like a bit of a pain. I guess a tall larder fridge might fit both fermenter and kegs but that would mean the kegs being at ale fermenting temperatures a lot of the time.

So my current idea is an normal up and down fridge freezer, using the top as a keggerator and then having the bottom drawer of the freezer section as a glycol reserve, with a submersible pump in it and an in and out hose-lines drilled in the side of the freezer. For controlled fermentation, I would have a stainless immersion chiller drilled through the lid of the fermenting bucket that would connect to the glycol hoses and the whole bucket would sit in an insulated brew bag. When not in use, the fermenter/bag/coil would be tidied away and the hoses on the side of the freezer would be capped/plugged. The other few shelves of the freezer would be free for hops/overflow for my food freezer.

Obviously I started off wondering if I could use the two compartments for kegs and fermenters respectively but it seemed impractical for a few reasons. First you'd want the freezer section as the keggerator (as the cooler compartment) and these are normally quite small compared to the fridge section. Secondly, the freezer sections often have the coils built into the shelves which would make it very hard to make space for anything. Also assuming the cheap ones have only one compressor and set of cooling coils and use a fan to blow cool air to the fridge, it could be a pain to control two temperatures appropriately, and I assume the middle section will also have electronics/coils in it making it hard to put in my own vents & fans between the two compartments.

I figured my idea has the advantages that a) it wouldn't require much modification of the fridge electronics (freezer would run at normal temps, fridge would probably be ok running at its highest thermostat but could hopefully be easily modified with a controller if needed) b) it gives me extra freezer space which is always needed c) small footprint most of the time and fermenter can be tidied away when not in use.

So what do people think.... is it worth a shot? is it a really stupid idea? has anyone done anything similar before?

Also, well done if you made it this far through the wall of text

 

[Wilfy]

Or stack two fridges on top of each other.

 

[Oneiroi]

Or stack two fridges on top of each other.

Can't believe I didn't think of that haha

Edit: Think the bottom one would support the weight of a another fridge full of heavy kegs?

 

[Wilfy]

Can't believe I didn't think of that haha

Edit: Think the bottom one would support the weight of a another fridge full of heavy kegs?

You could always put a sheet of MDF on top of the bottom one to spread the weight, but yeah, it shouldn't be a problem.

 

[Hoddy]

Can't believe I didn't think of that haha

Edit: Think the bottom one would support the weight of a another fridge full of heavy kegs?

Yeah I used to have two undercounted fridges on top of each other. They'll be fine.

Top fridge keggerator bottom fridge fermentation chamber [emoji106]


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[Dutto]

Why not get really daring? Keep and drink your beer at room temperature and taste the brew itself rather than stunning your taste buds into submission!

Cost wise, a non-working fridge is usually free, a small 40W heater is less than £20 and an Inkbird STC 1000 can be wired up for less that £15; and even in "sunny Sussex" the average temperature is well below the usual fermentation temperature of 21*C for at least 10 months of the year.

Just a thought!

 

[Wilfy]

Why not get really daring? Keep and drink your beer at room temperature and taste the brew itself rather than stunning your taste buds into submission!

Cost wise, a non-working fridge is usually free, a small 40W heater is less than £20 and an Inkbird STC 1000 can be wired up for less that £15; and even in "sunny Sussex" the average temperature is well below the usual fermentation temperature of 21*C for at least 10 months of the year.

Just a thought!

Nah, I will give that a miss with my pilsener thanks.

 

[-Bezza-]

Why not get really daring? Keep and drink your beer at room temperature and taste the brew itself rather than stunning your taste buds into submission!

Cost wise, a non-working fridge is usually free, a small 40W heater is less than £20 and an Inkbird STC 1000 can be wired up for less that £15; and even in "sunny Sussex" the average temperature is well below the usual fermentation temperature of 21*C for at least 10 months of the year.

Just a thought!

Even CAMRA, don't suggest that: Real ale is served at cellar temperature 12-14 C (54-57 F), which is somewhat cooler than room temperature. If real ale is too warm it loses its natural conditioning (the liveliness of the beer due to the dissolved carbon dioxide). On the other hand if the beer is too cold it will kill off the subtle flavour.

Not that I find bird's nest to be a subtle flavour at any temperature.

http://www.camra.org.uk/in-the-pub

 

[Oneiroi]

Why not get really daring? Keep and drink your beer at room temperature and taste the brew itself rather than stunning your taste buds into submission!

Cost wise, a non-working fridge is usually free, a small 40W heater is less than £20 and an Inkbird STC 1000 can be wired up for less that £15; and even in "sunny Sussex" the average temperature is well below the usual fermentation temperature of 21*C for at least 10 months of the year.

Just a thought!

This did give me a bit of pause for thought, just because I've been tending to try and ferment my ales at about 17-18c (having found very unscientifically that they seemed better) so assuming active fermentation can add a few degrees, I figured I'd need cooling to ferment indoors in a flat (no cool larder or anything). At 21 that might not be true, although it depends on how hot the flat gets (i.e. whether all the neighbours crank up their heating all the time).

At the moment I do tend to drink english ales at my larder temp (I'd guess about 15-16c most of the year) but do like hoppy pales, lagers and wheat beers a bit cooler (though not 4c fridge temps) and sadly I won't have a larder for much longer...


In the end I found a working fridge online for £20 so have bought 1 under counter. Will see whether it's actually useful for fermenting for a month or two before deciding whether to add a separate one for kegging/storage.

 

[rank_frank]

Oneiroi, you may be lucky or you may not with regards to uncontrolled fermentation temperature. Dutto may be right about the outside temperature but most of our dwellings are above ambient and how much by depends on many factors including how much the heating is used in winter and how much sunlight shines in/on the room with the fermenter. How much this affects the temperature of the fermenting beer is another variable.

My North-West facing kitchen in Berkshire is normally too hot to ferment nicely in most summers. If you've got a cold downstairs concrete floor to put the fermenter on and a location in the middle of the house away from the sun then you may be able to ferment year round but you won't know unless you try If it works then you can convert that fridge to a keggerator.

 

[Dutto]

Mea culpa! I keep forgetting that almost every house in the UK has "Central Heating".

Why this is the case I will never know. In our house we get by with a single gas fire in the living room and storage heaters to take the chill off in the bathroom , bedroom and conservatory; none of which are switched on between March and October most years.

Obviously, in the brewing end of the garage I have a storage heater set at "Frost Control" so that my precious beers don't get too cold ...

... 'cos, unlike humans, my beers can't put on an extra jumper when it gets chilly!