Looking for a fridge

[davew]

I am looking for a fridge that will ideally fit 2 corny kegs in and a co2 bottle. Ideally I would also like a freezer compartment.

Any suggestions? I seemed to go round in circles at currys this evening.

Thanks

[vacant]

"Freezer compartment" - are you looking for a fridge/freezer with two doors?

For a simple one-door fridge I had to bend the freezer compartment shelf out of the way (down towards the back) of the one I was given to get the height for two cornies and apparently I was lucky to do that without fracturing the cooling pipes.

When I was looking at new fridges the Hotpoint RLA36? was wide enough and had a compressor shelf in just one corner so that two cornies could fit in without hacking the fridge. There would be room above the compressor for a small CO2 bottle. I took cardboard circles slightly wider than a cornys and a tape measure to Currys.

But I got a free fridge, hacked away at the internals to get two cornies in and I keep my large gas cylinder outside. Rather than drill through the fridge wall I just cut out a small piece of the door seal so my beer and gas lines could pass through.

[jmc]

"Freezer compartment" - are you looking for a fridge/freezer with two doors?

For a simple one-door fridge I had to bend the freezer compartment shelf out of the way (down towards the back) of the one I was given to get the height for two cornies and apparently I was lucky to do that without fracturing the cooling pipes.

When I was looking at new fridges the Hotpoint RLA36? was wide enough and had a compressor shelf in just one corner so that two cornies could fit in without hacking the fridge. There would be room above the compressor for a small CO2 bottle. I took cardboard circles slightly wider than a cornys and a tape measure to Currys.

But I got a free fridge, hacked away at the internals to get two cornies in and I keep my large gas cylinder outside. Rather than drill through the fridge wall I just cut out a small piece of the door seal so my beer and gas lines could pass through.

+1 for the Hotpoint RLA fridges. The small back shelf/ compressor cover gives you much more room, for a heater or other stuff, eg I store an extra 1/2 corny on mine. I use mine as a Keggerator.
BTW I store my std pub CO2 bottle outside and use a heat lamp inside to make room for more beer.

more info

[alexlark]

+1 for the RLA fridge. Nice and roomy. Good for Cornys and Sankeys.

[WalesAles]

davew,
Don`t buy new. Look on Ebay and `Gumtree Nottingham`. I was looking for a Fridge/ Freezer for my daughter in Notts last month
and a few always turn up. There is one seller who sells them for about £40.

WA

[Dave S]

I am looking for a fridge that will ideally fit 2 corny kegs in and a co2 bottle. Ideally I would also like a freezer compartment.

Any suggestions? I seemed to go round in circles at currys this evening.

Thanks

There's no point having a freezer compartment, or for that matter a separate freezer in the same unit because they both work off the same supply. So while you're controlling the temperature of your cornies, the freezer bit is only working intermittently. A freezer, if it's to act like a freezer needs to be on a separate supply.

[davew]

Thanks for the replies the RLA looks ideal, I'll have a look on gumtree.

Do you think a standard budget barrel would fit in one H42cm W32cm?

[Pinto]

Free ads, freecycle and Gumtree. All three of my frooker builds were purchased for £10 or less (ok, one grenaded, but with the aid of some peltiers its made an excellent 12 degree store for ale conditioning and serving

I usually go for straight larder fridges as I find those with a freezer compartment inconvenient and a waste of (keg or fermenter) space.

Avoid eBay as it crawls with last second bidding maggots who push the price weey too high. If I wanted to pay that much I'd buy new !

[jaroporter]

but with the aid of some peltiers its made an excellent 12 degree store for ale conditioning and serving

Pinto, interested to know how you did this and how effective they are, sounds like it works well. i was looking into doing something similar actually, but never got round to it (mainly because i got the idea but i've never used them so i don't really know whats best.. ).

[alexlark]

Do you think a standard budget barrel would fit in one H42cm W32cm?

Yes, bags of space! I done that before I had stainless kegs.

[Pinto]

but with the aid of some peltiers its made an excellent 12 degree store for ale conditioning and serving

Pinto, interested to know how you did this and how effective they are, sounds like it works well. i was looking into doing something similar actually, but never got round to it (mainly because i got the idea but i've never used them so i don't really know whats best.. ).

Basically this...

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Thermoelectri ... SwPe1T9Yvb

Mine was home made tho, and uses 2x 120mm case fans. Also. I cut a 100mm hole in the side of my fridge and inserted a section of land drain - easy as the dead fridge was the type that had all the coolant pipes on a plate at the back and none in the walls. One case fan expelled the hot air, the other circulated the cold. Cold side was controlled by a 12v stc-1000:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/12V-110V-220V ... NNIVuAi5QQ

Although the stc is capable of direct switching, I've made mine switch the load via a 30A 12v relay to give it an easier life. The probe lives in a small tumbler of starsan to buffer the temp fluctuations.

Power for the setup comes from. A generic 12V 15A led driver supply.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/DC-12V-24V-5V ... apAC1oGSmA

Wire up is similar to building a fermentation chamber. I've found it to be quite effective, if a little slow but as we're talking conditioning, its not an issue really. It would be quite easy to build it with a 200w+ peltiers array with a larger PSU if you needed more "go"