Femme Fatale Brewing

We finally located a fridge that we were happy with (special thanks to my wife who found it, found a coupon for it, and more importantly let me buy it). Orginally, we were going to buy a used fridge or freezer. Then, we thought about the long term power costs associated with running the fridge or freeze and the higher risk of something breaking. Looking at it long term, it made more sense to acquire a new unit.

The problem with buying new of course is the sunk cost is much greater. Fridges and freezers the size we needed were cheaper then the larger models but still could run 400+ USD easy.

We were waiting for some to go on clearance and finally a fridge did at home depot. It is a 9.8 cubic foot magic chef fridge. We got it 40% off retail using clearance pricing and a coupon. The cost to run it per year is 28 dollars which is really good, especially when stacked against older used models which could be that much A MONTH.

To make it have more space inside, we are going to unscrew the inside door panel, cut a piece a sheet metal, and screw that in its place. This should give us about 6+ more inches inside the fridge. We will then custom install 2 taps for kegs (we still need to get our kegging system but it is all a work in process).

We also still need the external temperature controller for when we use the fridge for carboy fermenting. Why you say put the carboy in the fridge? Lagers. Plus even with ale, the more temperature control the better. Variations in temperature are not good for beer.

So all in all, a big investment for brewing but a good one. The fridge will serve multiple purposes (we plan to store hops and extra grain in it too, maybe booze in the freezer part).