Fridges For Kits.

[Slightly]

Thinking about getting a fridge off ebay to keep my fermenter in during brewing.

I read somewhere that fridges with an inbuilt freezer (the same door leads to both freezer and fridge) are bad for this kind of thing?

Also, I'm not too familiar with fridges, do most come with a temp control that you can change (i.e. set to 20 degrees during fermentation of your brew) or do you have to buy this kind of thing seperately?

Basically, I just need some general fridge advice...


(By the way, I have a Coopers Micro-Brew Kit Fermenter).

Cheers!

 

[kelbygreen]

Not sure on the inbuilt freezer.

the fridge for temp control you need a temp control unit this as a temperature probe that goes in the fridge (on the fermenter or in the wort) to read the actual wort temperatur not the fridge temp. you can get them from the sponsored links at the top of the page. there is a fridgemate and a tempmate I think not sure the best heard good things about the tempmate.

I havnt got mine yet so cant tell you to much on the matter

 

[jbowers]

Yeah,

I'd suggest gumtree, not ebay. You can get some real bargains there. Don't be afraid to look for freezers/chest freezers too. Just as good.

Check out craftbrewer.com.au for the tempmate. Set mine up today, works a charm. Sitting at 18 degrees as we speak.

 

[Screwtop]

Try the newspaper for local stuff (garage sales), barfridge usually refers to a cheap fridge, get something old/working/cheap/big. Fridge/freezer is good, you will need something like a Fridgemate for heat OR cold temp control or a Tempmate for heat AND cold temp control (bit more expensive) available by clicking sponsor links above.

Screwy

 

[Slightly]

Fridgemate for heat OR cold temp control or a Tempmate for heat AND cold temp control (bit more expensive) available by clicking sponsor links above.

Can someone please go into more detail about the difference between a fridgemate and a tempmate nad how it affects brewing?


oh and how it connects to a fridge?

 

[jbowers]

fridgemate make 3 models. heating, cooling and both. However the one that does both has a manual switch. You have to choose which one it will be doing - heating or cooling.

The tempmate automatically switches between either. There are other differences, but that is the key one.

Edit: How to connect is explained on these forums, and on the back of the box itself.

You simply need an extension lead which you chop in half. To put it simply, you plug your fridge in to the lead you wire in to the tempmate, and you plug the tempmate in to the wall socket where you previously would have put the fridge.

 

[Slightly]

Cheers. ^_^

 

[seemax]

I just picked up an old 350L (or more) fridge on ebay for $20. Freezer is small so there is plenty of room for 2 full size fermenters.

Coupled with a fridgemate at $50 off I have myself a cheap temp controlled system.

 

[Bizier]

I just got a second fridge while I am switching to kegs. I paid the illustrious sum of $170 because I need it quick and I was after one that is 'all fridge no freezer' to fit 2 fermenters vertically. The reason for this is that when you have a beer at 17 degrees in the main part of the fridge, the freezer is cooling and warming all the time, and grows mold like there is no tomorrow. It is also basically useless while fermenting, though it is a good temporary freezer when crash chilling.

Freecycle is good for free fridges. Gumtree is also good for cheap fridges.

If you don't care so much, a big cheap fridge/freezer is just fine.

 

[Bribie G]

If you get a large second hand fridge / freezer - provided you have a dedicated large space such as a garage or shed where you are brewing - a system that many brewers use is to get a (usually free) dead fridge in addition to this. Here's my setup: (ugly but effective). The live fridge is an upside down fridge freezer. Both fridges were free.

So the 'brewing cycle' consists of fermenting in the dead fridge, using one or two or more frozen PET bottles, switched once a day, which I produce in the live freezer. I can keep temperatures to the nearest degree and can even produce lagers during the summer.

When primary is finished I transfer to a cube and do a 'cold crash' for a few days at near freezing, or up to a few weeks for a lager. I can fit 3 cubes in the live fridge and also keep yeasts, drinkables and other odds and ends there. The freezer is also handy to store all my hops. This system "multiplies" the live fridge, in that it can perform many functions, whereas a single fridge with a tempmate is really only going to be a fermenting cabinet. As you can see with a live / dead fridge combo you get that fermenting cabinet, but all the other functions as well, and no need for a temp or fridge mate.

The only problem is if you have to go away for a week or so and aren't there to switch the bottles. If I have a trip coming up I arrange to have everything brewed and put into cubes and into the live fridge to be kegged or bottled on return. I've even 'suspended animated' a brew and woke it up again on my return, although that's desperate measures

Worth considering

 

[Bizier]

I would hope that a dead fridge would be free Bribie seeing as this guy got his for 10c and the seller did not even want that.

 

[Bribie G]

I would hope that a dead fridge would be free Bribie seeing as this guy got his for 10c and the seller did not even want that.

I read that one! pity fridges can't be posted out in an envelope - my live fridge (kindly donated by GravityGuru) involved a convoy of car and ute up the Bruce Highway on a busy Saturday and lots of cursing and bruised knuckles but we had beers afterwards. The dead fridge was me and a buddy wheeling it on a hand trolley from the other side of the suburb. One joker hanging over his fence called out "they're great those things, especially with a tap sticking out of the front " Telepathic.

 

[Bizier]

One joker hanging over his fence called out "they're great those things, especially with a tap sticking out of the front " Telepathic.

What was his AHB user name? :lol:

 

[Screwtop]

If you get a large second hand fridge / freezer - provided you have a dedicated large space such as a garage or shed where you are brewing - a system that many brewers use is to get a (usually free) dead fridge in addition to this. Here's my setup: (ugly but effective). The live fridge is an upside down fridge freezer. Both fridges were free.

So the 'brewing cycle' consists of fermenting in the dead fridge, using one or two or more frozen PET bottles, switched once a day, which I produce in the live freezer. I can keep temperatures to the nearest degree and can even produce lagers during the summer.

Just my take on it Bribie! Maybe false economy, thats why we moved from Ice Chests to refrigeration, producing ice to keep things cool is less efficient than maintaing temp. Keeping around 8L of water frozen (4L at a time) for say 12hrs to maintain 20L at 20C for 24 hrs would be less efficient power wise using a freezer than using a live fridge to maintain 20L at 20C. Some people believe that the freezer is running already so it costs no more, but it does, the freezer uses energy to alter the temperature of the contents to the set temperature, vary the temperature of some of the contents and you vary the temperature of the net contents and energy is consumed (paid for) to alter the gross content until the temperature of the gross/net contents have equalised.

Plus you can go away without worries, and pull the probe out and use the refrigerator for it's designed use. Might be nit pickin, I know, but trust me to sweat the really small stuff :lol:

Screwy

 

[Bribie G]

Yes, laws of thermodynamics etc. I'll probably get a 'chesty' in due course. However the freezer is also very useful to produced PETs for:



Power bill is acceptable so I'm still not really looking to shell out few hundred just yet, but maybe later on - or even get a setup like Sully's (He got a Quirk commercial cabinet like you see in delis, reconditioned for around a grand)

 

[simont141]

One point I think I have missed, is why can't you just set the fridge thermostat to the appropriate temperature for whatever you're brewing?

Eg: I'm going to brew a lager using saflager s-23, which likes to be between 8 and 12 degrees. But given all the reading I've done about fridgemates and so on, I'm guessing that it is not as simple as just setting the thermostat and leaving it to do its thing.

Can you not get constant temperatures this way? Can you not get it warm enough?

 

[mxd]

fridges generally are not set to "cool" to such a "high" temp.

 

[zebba]

One point I think I have missed, is why can't you just set the fridge thermostat to the appropriate temperature for whatever you're brewing?

Eg: I'm going to brew a lager using saflager s-23, which likes to be between 8 and 12 degrees. But given all the reading I've done about fridgemates and so on, I'm guessing that it is not as simple as just setting the thermostat and leaving it to do its thing.

Can you not get constant temperatures this way? Can you not get it warm enough?

Just talking from MY experience (all fridges are different), it was really hard to get the right temp as the thermostat just had "0-9" - which didn't represent the temp. 0 got me between 15 and 17 degrees, and 9 got me anywhere from 2 degrees to slushy-beer (i.e. frozen). In addition to this, from the brewery into the fermenting fridge I want to get it down to temp as quick as possible, but not so fast it gets too cold, which meant setting to a lower setting then checking on it constantly till it was at my desired temp then changing back to the warmest setting. Plus, the 15-17 during main ferment would drop down even lower once the yeast slowed down, so risk of stuck ferment.

Now I have the tempmate wired up, I push a few buttons and the tempmate does the rest - gets it down to ferment temp as quick as possible, gets it down to a good crash chill temp without freezing it, and I'm soon to find out in the next brew how it goes doing real lagers - I'm guessing it will be a breeze. Basically, it takes out the guess work

 

[Tao]

If you are like me and have no skill with electrics you can always buy one of these to fit to a fridge or freezer LINK... $119 and it's working a treat.

 

[simont141]

Cheers for that fellas. I figured there would have been some issues getting the right temperature and maintaining it.

I was trying to keep my set up low-cost, but it's a tossup between spending 50 bucks to get one of the temperature controllers, or not brewing beer for a few more months... I think I know which will win!