Brew fridge question...

[Adgeo]

Hi guys,
I am in the process of making a fermentation fridge. I have acquired an under counter freezer and have got an Inkbird and a tube heater. The brew fridge will be situated in an unheated outbuilding, so my question is: The freezer its self doesn’t work, so over the colder months at least, will that be a problem as in should I be able to maintain a decent brewing temperature with a combination of ambient temps and the tube heater to control?
Cheers, Adgeo.

 

[Ghillie]

Hi guys,
I am in the process of making a fermentation fridge. I have acquired an under counter freezer and have got an Inkbird and a tube heater. The brew fridge will be situated in an unheated outbuilding, so my question is: The freezer its self doesn’t work, so over the colder months at least, will that be a problem as in should I be able to maintain a decent brewing temperature with a combination of ambient temps and the tube heater to control?
Cheers, Adgeo.

Last month I built a second fermentation fridge and put it in the shed. The heat generated from the wort is not enough in itself to raise the fridge's ambient temperature by anything in this weather. I have the setpoint at 19.5C and the heater happily switches itself on and off without ever getting warm enough for the fridge to kick in.

FWIW - my tube heater is 60W and it maintained temperatures fine with it being -4C outside. That's the coldest it's been yet, but I reckon it'll be good for way colder than that.

Summer time you might have a different story, but fridges and freezers insulate well against exterior ambient temperatures i.e. - keep the hot in and cold out/keep the cold in and hot out.

 

[Bigcol49]

Hi @Adgeo
In the colder months, your non-operational freezer will be fine. I had a DIY fermentation box which was perfect in cold weather with just a heater; I have recently re-purposed a non-operational pub bottle chiller as a cold-weather fermentation chamber. It maintains 21°C without any problems.
As @Ghillie has already stated, even in a working brew fridge the cooling circuit hardly ever turns on in cold weather.

 

[xozzx]

Why not just get a cheap fridge off gumtree, then there will be no worry about it getting too hot. It also allows you to cold crash easily.

You can easily pick one oup for £20-30

 

[GhostShip]

I got my fridge off ebay for £12.66 - and it was just a few miles away in terms of picking it up.

For me, the beauty of it is being able to brew through the summer months when you would definitely need some cooling. I think you'll find it a bit restricting if you can't cool. Also, what about cold conditioning? I wouldn't want to be at the mercy of the weather for that.

 

[Adgeo]

Thanks for your responses guys.
I fully intend to buy a functioning fridge, the only reason I’m using the knackered freezer is because my mum was throwing it out so I thought I’d get me a heating medium and rely on our balmy winter weather to sort the cooling aspect.
I am very new to home brew, I bottled my very first kit yesterday - a Beerworks Presidents Sierra AIPA so I’m crossing my fingers for success come Christmas. I started off my second brew today - another Beerworks Spire IPA. I just have the basic plastic 5 gal FV and associated bits required for the extract kits I’m just doing but hope to expand on this and move to AG brewing.
Cheers.