Tempmate On Fridge Freezer

[rotten]

G'day fellow brewers.

I have a 550 ltr beer fridge which I want to turn into a brew fridge. It it a fridge freezer though with the freezer up top.

My question is could I hook a tempmate up to the fridge section only, and keep the freezer for storing hops & cold glasses etc?

Cheers.

 

[Silo Ted]

No

 

[Thirsty Boy]

maybe... sort of, but probably not.

A lot of fridges control the "fridge" temp by running a fan to draw cold air down from the freezer. So one part of the fridge is running the compressor and keeping the freezer frozen while another part is running the fan between the two and watching the fridge temp.

It should be possible to leave the freezer bit alone, and run a controller only to the cold funnelling fan. Giving you a functional freezer and a controlled fridge. Although you may have to use a separate controller for each bit, I'm not sure how the fridge smarts actually work but there is no reason you couldn't bypass them completely if you needed to.

It cant be done by just plugging in a Tempmate - but I know (seen it done) that you can control the two bits of that type of fridge separately.

TB

 

[Phoney]

Before I replaced my fridge with an upright freezer I kept a bottle of water in the freezer section to see what temperature I was getting up there... at 18C in cooler weather it was just cool liquid but In hot weather the bottle would be slushy ice as I guess the compressor would be running more often. At lagering temps or when cold conditioning it was fully frozen.

 

[Housecat]

If you already have it, just chuck an ice cube tray i the freezer section and see if it freezes. I use mine to control my drinks fridge and it still keeps things frozen but those temps are a lot lower than for a brew fridge.

 

[rotten]

Thanks guys.
The freezer works, the fridge is playing up at the moment, I think the thermostat on the fridge is buggered. I tried adjusting temp and it just does whatever it wants, which is why I thought of converting to a brew fridge as the tempmate takes over that job.
Will research further, it would make a good brew fridge, two fermentors at the same time.
Cheers