kegerator/temp-control cabbinet for small spaces

So I live/ Brew in a ONE bedroom apartment that is about to get even smaller when my fieance moves in. we are trying to save for a down payment on a house, so we are going to see how long we can last here in my one bed room. So I have to get my brewing equipment as compact as possable.

Here is my atempt to kill two birds with one stone. I have a mini fridge kegerator and an $20 IKEA wood storage shelf, and thought I can put those together and have a temp control cabinet.


so here is how it came together.


Materials:

• Mini fridge:$50 Craig's list
• IKEA Shelf $20
• 115 VAC cooling Fan $15 Radio shack
• Foam board 1-1/2" $15
• Jonson Controller $20 ebay
• cord
• Wood paneling $15
• 3' abs drain flange $6
• 5"length 3'ABS pipe
• Latex Calk
• Silicon Glue
• Hinges and handles-$5
• Otey Washing machine box $5
  
• 3'hole saw
• Jig saw
• Hack saw

Set up the shelfs so the cabinet was big enough for a 6gal carboy but small enough for the mini fridge to still fit.

Cut the foam board to fit in the cabinet. I cut the top first then the back, then the sides the front , and the bottom last. I did it this way so the sides can come out when i was assembling the cabinet.


Drill a 3" hole in bottom of cabinet. and wire to controller.


Cut wood paneling to form the door, the take one of the sides out so you can cut the foam on the front panel to fit the door.


Glue bottom, top and door foam, and inset sides. Use Latex caulking to seal joints between foam panels.Cut wood to cover sides, and attach to IKEA shelf unit.

Next hooking up the Mini fridge.

That is pretty sweet. I am going to build something similar soon. Hopefully my fridge can cool to lager temps in the fridge part and keg temps on the other. I have never thought of using a pre-made cabinet before, definitely will save space. Can you post a link or name of the cabinet? Do you think, say, two cornies will fit inside with the foam?

Next to connect the cabinet to the Mini fridge. Aline the air inlet to the top of the fridge so the holes aline with the cabinet. ( Note: I bent the freezer part of the mini fridge back to accommodate a keg. be careful doing this not to crimp the refrigerant line.)




Put pipe in to the Otay box and put it through the fridge and connect it to the air inlet. attach the box to the back of fridge and the cooling element of the fridge. This crates and air box that draws air from the coolest pat of the fridge, to cool the cabinet.





Fill the space between the inlet pipe and the hole in the fridge with Latex caulk. Place a pick-nick cooler Blue ice pack in to the air box. and your done.

I'm testing this right now, and it holds a temp of 55ºF well. I am thinking of adding a vent pipe that connects the the cabinet to the fridge, to improve air circulation.

I'll keep the post running.

The way I built it It wont fit a corny. but if you put the shelf one lower than I did it will. I could not fide a link on IKEA's web site but they have them in the garage storage area at the store. I'm not confident that it will be good for lagering, but I might try to see if it will work.

Beerrific said:

That is pretty sweet. I am going to build something similar soon. Hopefully my fridge can cool to lager temps in the fridge part and keg temps on the other. I have never thought of using a pre-made cabinet before, definitely will save space. Can you post a link or name of the cabinet? Do you think, say, two cornies will fit inside with the foam?

Click to expand...

Neat idea. I agree that adding a recirculating vent will really help.

fifelee said:

Neat idea. I agree that adding a recirculating vent will really help.

Click to expand...

I added the recirculating vent, and it works way better. I cooled it from 80 to 60 in under an hour. were before it was taking well over an hour.

This is a great idea!

I have been wanting to get a chest freezer for a while and want it to provide serving, lagering and fermenting temps and this sort of idea could provide that without using a heating element inside the freezer.

i'll have to find a way to make it look decent but i like the idea.

well done!

ws

Just a quick update, I have my cabinet running at ~58ºF and I'm fermenting my California common, and conditioning my Honey nut brown. I have about 75Lbs in it right now.



Now on to the next project!

I can't decide what I like better, building stuff or brewing.

The Fatal flaw...by circulating WARM air from the fermentation box through the refrigerator you get one BIG problem. All the warm moist air condenses and freezes in to a big ice block in the refrigerator! it was able to keep the temp down well for about a month, but after that I had to defrost the refrigerator. I am currently re tooling the system buy installing a radiator and cooling fan, but so far I am not having too much success.

I went to the sears outlet store today and found two refers I could covert for about $200...Considering how much I have spent on this Jerry rigged box its a deal!

oh well two tears in a bucket..F#ck it! Have a beer!

Just an idea but you could invert what you have and make the fridge on top, drill the holes in the bottom so the cold air drops and warm air rises..

going to watch this

Bsquared said:

The Fatal flaw...by circulating WARM air from the fermentation box through the refrigerator you get one BIG problem. All the warm moist air condenses and freezes in to a big ice block in the refrigerator! it was able to keep the temp down well for about a month, but after that I had to defrost the refrigerator. I am currently re tooling the system buy installing a radiator and cooling fan, but so far I am not having too much success.

I went to the sears outlet store today and found two refers I could covert for about $200...Considering how much I have spent on this Jerry rigged box its a deal!

oh well two tears in a bucket..F#ck it! Have a beer!

Click to expand...

What temp is your frig set at? Unless your compressor is running around the clock I would think that you would just get water not ice.

fifelee said:

What temp is your frig set at? Unless your compressor is running around the clock I would think that you would just get water not ice.

Click to expand...

Thats probably part of the problem, but the way the mini frige worked is that the cooling panel is in the top freezer section of the fridge. I bent that down so it was agents the back wall so I could fit a keg into it. I had to turn the thermostat almost all the way down in order to get my cabinet down to 58ºF so that probably lead to the icing as well.

Now I rigged up a computer fan and a mini radiator...




I had about 1gal of water running through it an It cooled the box down quickly to about 64ºF then that was it. the water in the fridge go warm and did not cool back down fast enough to maintain the temp...

now I have 5gal of water, and the return in to the fridge runs through 50ft of 1/4 tubbing. hopefully this will work but I set it up last night and want the water in the fridge to get as cool as possible before I start running it.


If this does not work...I might get a second radiator for the inside of the fridge to cool the water coming back in, as well I might try anti-freeze and run the coil as close to the cooling panel...

I'm moving so I'm a little more inclined to buy a small refrigerator and put a controller on it

looks good, but your biggest mistake was letting your fiance move in! if i was single i would have a brewmaster 5000, kegorator (already have that lol) and a lager freezer

Wow, that is some major ice build up you have going on in there! Where is all that moisture coming from? From your original posts it looks like you took great care in sealing everything up, but unless you and testing the load capacity with open vessels of water inside either chamber, it sure looks like you must have some air leaks or something. Or, perhaps it's just from openning the doors often since, afterall, you are in the testing stages.

Good luck with the other radiator, but for pete's sake defrost that thing first before you burn out the compressor!!! :cross:

I like the idea. I'm thinking about building a bigger one to handle 2 conicals. I just saw a 5.5K BTU air conditioner at Sam's club for $89. A cheapo unit with a manual thermostat control, so it's just what Yuri ordered. Now I just need more room.

Time for the brew hut....

I got lucky with my girl, she likes it when I make beer, and she like to come out and drink beer with my boys. Also she is getting in to making cheese, so every think I buy fro beer making I can say,"you can use it for your cheese too."

So the latest update is that I think I need to add a heat exchanger IN the fridge too. I have kinda given up on this project, or at least the Idea that I will use this technique for cooling down the larger box I have in mind. I will still try one more thing to get this to work though. For now I know that 5gal of water at ~35ºF will cool ~3ft^3 from 75ºF to 60ºF in about 20min with the fan and radiator I have rigged up. The problem is that is fine if there is not 10gal of wort at 65-70º...then It really never gets below 65º and can only hold it there for about 6hr.

This is due to systems ineficentcy to shed he heat it acquires from the wort in the cabinet. So my final plan is to connect the return line to about 20ft of 1/4" copper pipe on top of an aluminum plate, bolt this to the cooling unit of the fridge, and add anti freeze to the coolant. hope fully this will be better.

I think when I move in to my new place I am getting a freezer chest. I might make one large insulated enclosure as well, but I am doing like EdWort said, cooling it with a cheep small AC unit. And when I buy my place...Brew Shed...I cant wait!