Kegorator - bending an ice box

[vacant]

I re-purposed a 49.5cm wide Hotpoint "First Edition" undercounter fridge I picked up during the week. It had an ice compartment at the top, not enough height for a corny. The cooling plate was in a "C" shape forming the top, back and shelf of the ice compartment. After removing the plastic supports I was able to bend the shelf part of the cooling plate down towards the back or the fridge. That gave me enough head room to fit one corny.

Anyway, the main point is these cooling plates seem to bend easily (i.e. without fracturing and spraying coolant in your face? - do this at your own risk). With that show-stopper conquered mould killer spray, Flash bleach cleaner spray, a wire pan scrubber and toothbrush got it sparkling almost like new.

To fit two cornies I stripped out the thermostat/light/door switch housing, cut off the shelf supports and cut away a small section of insulating door lip then covered the exposed foam insulation with tape. I cut out a channel in the door seal at the top corner to get the beer and gas line in. I pulled the thermostat/door electric cable out of the back, blocked the small hole, insulated the ends and shorted together the two wires that went to the thermostat using terminal block.

Having the cool air drop down from the top gives a great distribution and I'm running without the low power fan I felt helped with a small chest freezer I had been using before. The STC-1000 sensor is poked into a small cube of Celotex wedged between the kegs. Now the kegs have stabilised (only one was previously cooled), I'm getting beer into a non-cooled glass at 0.1C above the STC -1000 target temp.

[BenB]

I guess sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. My only recent relationship with an ice box lead to coolant hissing everywhere and me heading off to get a new fridge!!!

[vacant]

I found a recent post by Fil saying more failures than successes but thought it worth a try. Bent it gently using hands rather than tools.