Wine Chiller Kegerator Project

[Ty_Deschaine]

Well, I picked up this guy from Craigslist for a real good price and decided it would make for a really good first time Kegerator project....

I plugged it in lastnight and running it on the coldest setting, it got down to about 37 degrees before kicking off. It kicked back on at 45 degrees. At this setting i figure it will keep my beer around 42 degrees.

First things first i do want to have better control over the temperature I would ideally like the beer to be 40 out of the tap. I am not much of an electrician, but while doing some research I seem to have 2 options... Either bypass the thermostat and run an Aux thermostat. Or replace the internal thermostat all togeather.

What do you guys think is the best option for this set up. I have snapped a few photos of the thermostat as you can see below... I think both would be fairly easy...

Specs

Wiring diagram

Based on the above photo, would bypassing be as easy as connecting the red and black wires?

Your advice would be greatly appreciated! I am super excited to dive into the world of Kegging. I think it will make brewing that much more enjoyable.

 

[Newtland]

Subscribed, I have one of these as well and was thinking roughly the same thing. Looking forward to what the smart guys here have to say!

 

[fall-line]

I use a Haier wine fridge for a fermentation chamber. Due to the wide range of temperatures I want to set it at, I went for the external temp controller route. It has been working very well.

Mine had a digital thermostat, but the wiring looks fairly similar. Have a look here, hopefully it'll help a bit.

 

[Ty_Deschaine]

Well, after getting my hands on some Corny Kegs for real cheap (thank you craigslist!), this fridge wont work without some serious modification... So fermentation chamber it is. after a little bit of modification here she is...

The wine chiller had double pane glass on the door so I had to "remove" it to gain an additional inch of space. The motor hump was just slightly to large. I just broke the glass and carefully removed the left over pieces.

I added some insulation board from Home Depot to the glass to aid in temp retention and WALA! It was done. I plan to add an external temp controller to manage the temperature. But I think it should end up working awesome.

Ill update after my first time fermenting in it.

 

[jlb307]

how is this working out for you? i've got a line on the exact same one on CL i'm thinking of grabbing for a ferm chamber.

 

[Ty_Deschaine]

It works well. It fits a 6 Gal car boy perfectly. I have been meaning to make the ebay dual temp controller for this fridge. Its been pretty warm here in Seattle the past few weeks and it can be tricky to keep the beer at the right temperature.

Overall, if you don't mind doing one beer at a time in 5 gal batches, are handy enough add in some heat stripping and a temp controller, you would have a perfect fermentation chamber that hits all the ranges for Lagering and Ale's.

 

[jlb307]

what mods did you do? looks like there's a temperature probe for indication only going on in there.
does the installed thermostat work well enough for fermenting ales?