Fermentation Fridge Teething Problems

[HoppingMad]

The problem:
Picked up a fridge for $20 and should have figured it was too good to be true. Tested it with glasses of water in it, expecting them to freeze or something to be wrong with it, but all seemed fine. Door seals fine, nothing to suggest any issues after running it for two days. Prior to using it for fermentation control, stuck some beers in and they started to freeze. Had put a whole case in and about 3-4 out of 24 were iceblocks . Total bummer.

The question:
I'm no fridge techie, but am suspecting that the thermostat or control box might have an issue. The door seals seem fine and there is no gaps from the freezer to the fridge (seperate doors anyhow).

My question is this: If it's the thermostat would a manual fridge thermostat Like this still be able to maintain some sort of temperature on this so I can use it for fermenting or do I really need to sort the inside fridge thermostat issue first?

Thanks,

Hopper.

 

[mika]

Sounds like a good one, should do Lagers with no probs. Turn the thermostat as high as it will go and bung a fridgemate or similar on it..laughing.

 

[muckey]

Sounds like a good one, should do Lagers with no probs. Turn the thermostat as high as it will go and bung a fridgemate or similar on it..laughing.

absolutely - will be perfect with a fridgemate

 

[jonocarroll]

I had this happen to my drinks fridge recently - worked fine with a few bottles in it, but filled it and things froze. I should have known better though - thermodynamics has the answer.

My guess is that the thermostat in there isn't particularly fancy, and just removes a certain amount of heat every so often. The full fridge has a much larger thermal mass, and so is harder to warm up by the external temperature - it stays cold better. If the thermostat is located somewhere that doesn't sense the internal temp very well, it will keep removing heat, thus freezing stuff that was already cold.

Unfortunately, I don't really have a solution, except to get a fridgemate and put the sensor on/in the thing you are trying to cool. It should turn the fridge off before anything freezes. It can also control, say a brewbelt, to warm it up if it does get too cold.

 

[Supra-Jim]

+1 for the fridgemate.

I run one with fridge and heat belt. i just manually swap between the two depending on the prevailing weather conditions.

 

[Effect]

My fermentation fridge used to do that as well.

Would put in all the groceries and find out the next day that they were all frozen (first thing I noticed frozen was the tomato sauce - it felt a bit too cold and wouldn't come out onto my hot pie )


Its got a fridge controller on it now and works sweet!

 

[andrewg1978]

+ 1 for fridge mate the only way to go.....

but I use a $10 timer to turn my chest freezer on/off for keg chilling, with a bit of playing you could potentially do the same if a cheeper option is what you are after

 

[Effect]

+ 1 for fridge mate the only way to go.....

but I use a $10 timer to turn my chest freezer on/off for keg chilling, with a bit of playing you could potentially do the same if a cheeper option is what you are after

the $10 job is exactly what I did to stop my tomato sauce from freezing. Fridge turns on for 20 mins per hour during daylight, and doesn't turn on during the night time. (this was during winter btw).

 

[HoppingMad]

Thanks guys, got a fridge controller and put it in over the weekend. Now my beers are nice and chilled, no icing up and with the fridge turning itself off to keep temps constant looks like I'm saving power too which I'm chuffed about. Got the one on my initial post from G&G as the fridge is small and want something external I can use to upgrade to a larger fridge when the time comes to do bigger batches.

In hindsight my question seems kind of dumb, but not having used a controller before wasn't sure if I'd have to fork out for a fridge technician to fix the internal thermostat.

I am amazed how well these fridge controllers work - even this manual one , while not a Fridgemate works very well. Any newbies considering a non-wiring option, I can recommend this approach if you're happy with the outlay. Obviously a lot of converts to the Fridgemates and will be considering that or a Tempmate when I get better at using these things and upgrading at a later stage.

Problem solved. Thanks heaps!
:icon_cheers:

Hopper.