So, I built a bar, insulated it and hooked up the guts from a mini fridge to keep kegs cold. The problem is the cubic feet of the bar is larger than the mini fridge from which I took the coils from so it isn’t cooling down enough. Right now it has the thermostat from the mini fridge in it… if I buy a temp controller to bypass the stock thermostat would I be able to cool the unit to a satisfactory degree? Or am I going to have to get another set up going… I know little about compressor/coil to cooling ratio so any information would be appreciated. Thanks
You might be able to bypass the thermostat completely to where the compressor would always run if plugged in directly. This could be as simple as a cut and splice. That said, I would expect the life of the compressor to be negatively affected.
My brew fridge has had the thermostat bypassed (it was broken). I can get down to 2/3c when cold crashing (not tried going further). I’m not sure if that’ll help you with your volume problem though, as presumably the thermostat is only cutting the cooling when it gets down to 6/8c, and your issue seems to be that you don’t have the capacity to reach that.
Is it feasible to shrink your bar volume to a similar size to the original fridge? Maybe remove the CO2 tank and store that outside the cooled portion.
BTW, the bar looks good.