Fridge or freezer?

[JamieGalea]

Hey guys,

What is the best option to use with an inkbird controller, a fridge or a freezer as a ferment chamber?

I currently run a fridge but thinking to add another one.

 

[MrJay83]

I'm using an under counter fridge and I wish I went for a larder one. It does the job well but the hump makes it a pain. No views on a freezer except that I'm using one for my keezer.

 

[RoomWithABrew]

Just to be different I'm using a fridge freezer as ferment chamber.
I cut a hole in the bottom of the freezer box into the fridge, filled the freezer box up with insulation and just had a duct running from the fan to the hole. This means when cold crashing I get the freezer cold air being blown in as well as the fridge action. Drops a degree an hour which seems okay.

 

[AJA]

Mine takes nearly a day from 15 to 1° for cold crashing. I take the keg out from there and put it in our American style food fridge if the OH isn't home.

 

[JamieGalea]

So when cold crashing the time it takes to cool down matters?

Thought it is all about reaching a low temperature to drop sediment and clear the beer no?

 

[Jordang]

I’ve got a big fridge that allows me to ferment 2 beers at once, it takes around a day to get from 20° to 3° for cold crashing and maintains a good heat throughout with a 40w tube heater. It’s a Bosch one and cost me £30 off FB marketplace. I wouldn’t look at chest freezers for fermentation because of the lifting in and out

 

[hoppyscotty]

I lucked out and got a large fridge freezer sized larder fridge a mate was throwing out and its been ace, but before that was doing fine with under counter larger fridges for fermenting. My brewzilla fitted in fine but needed a blow off instead of an air lock as I had to raise the fermzilla onto the hump. that left a space underneath for a tube heater.

Beware as not all larder fridges are the same size and I did buy one locally for about £20 but was a bit smaller than what I considered to be a standard 600mm under counter fridge.

It works perfectly fine as a solution and can maintain fermentation temps more than adequately enough and doing this was the single biggest improvement for my results than anything...it literally lifted my beers to the next level in one step, though there are always many more levels to climb, so I would recommend to anyone just do it if you can. Ahead of anything else...it is the single most important and impactful upgrade you can make to your brewing process.

 

[hoppyscotty]

You can also use them as cheap glycol chillers. A mate of mine uses a bucket of glycol in a fridge with a submersible pump in the bucket and circulates glycol through his Grainfather Conical fermenter, but you could do this with any fermenter if you fit a cooling coil which you can pick up cheap enough and add to your fermenter. Can cold crash to about 3 or 4 degrees C. Would be better if it was a freezer but 3 degree glycol is more than enough to ferment beer with and do an effective cold crash.