Thread: Refrigeration for your hard earned venison

Originally Posted by P38

@kiwijames

At the moment I am lucky enough to have the use of a very, very large Humidity and temperature controlled chiller, however this may not always be available to me.

I had a thought that I could build a reasonably cheap chiller for at home using an upright Fridge freezer along these lines.

This chiller need only hold one carcass at a time.

Take one second hand working fridge freezer like this.
Attachment 44595

Disable the freezer coils leaving only the fridge coils operational.

Cut the panel out between the Fridge and freezer compartments full size, leaving just the front facer for the doors to seal against.

Install an eye bolt in the top and jobs done.

Carcasses can be loaded in from the fridge compartment and hung on the eye bolt.

Can you see any real problems with this design?

Cheers
Pete

Unfortunately there's quite a few problems with that idea Pete.
Most modern fridges will only have one refrigeration circuit with either the freezer pumping a small amount of cool air to the fridge to maintain the higher temperature in the fridge portion or, the circuit has two evaporator sections with the fridge section being in series with the freezer not an independant circuit that can be isolated.
Also across the front edge where you want to cut the divider out there may be a gas circuit. Often to stop the freezer door seal from freezing up the hot gas pipes are run around the edge of the door gasket. Cut those and it's game over.
The insulation will also be exposed once you cut the divider if you're lucky and there are no gas pipes. This will need to be sealed up and lined with something hygienic.
I'd try to find a vertical fridge only and go from there. The domestic ones though are the worst for dehumidification as to keep the evaporator size nice and compact they run very cold coil temperatures. Big thermal TD = dehumidification ☹️