The Fresh Loaf

A Community of Amateur Bakers and Artisan Bread Enthusiasts.

My Biga Fridge

albacore's picture
albacore

My Biga Fridge

I came across this little 4l Peltier fridge at the car bootie and couldn't resist it. I thought it would be ideal for making overnight bigas at 16C in the summer with a few mods.

Of course, like many things car boot, it didn't work! However it was an easy fix: the cooling fan for the hot-side heatsink wasn't turning because there was a bit of plastic stuck in the blades.

So, with the fridge working, time to add temperature control and cold air circulation. I fitted an NTC probe to feed back to my STC1000 style temperature controller and a 12v blower fan stuck to the roof of the fridge with double sided 3M tape to give air circulation.

I haven't used it in earnest yet, but my trial with a plastic tub of water looks promising - it was maintaining 16C accurately enough.

 

Lance

DesigningWoman's picture
DesigningWoman

Great that you could nurse it back to health. Enjoy it!

barryvabeach's picture
barryvabeach

Nice work.  I have the same controller -  I find it a little difficult to change the set temp, but otherwise ,  it works just fine for me. 

albacore's picture
albacore

Strange - I just press set, up or down, then set again.

I will have to remember to set C for cooling and H for heating in the HC menu item, depending what I'm controlling.

 

Lance

Yippee's picture
Yippee

Have fun! Is the insulation good?

Yippee

albacore's picture
albacore

I don't think it's great, maybe about 15mm sheet expanded polystyrene, but good enough and the fact that it's more or less a sealed enclosure helps.

Once it had run for a while, the chiller was probably on 60% of the time with sp 16C and RT 23C

Lance

Yippee's picture
Yippee

has insulation issue, too. So I'm not surprised with a "toy" like this. But it's so cute that I totally understand why you would spend??? on it.

Yippee

mutantspace's picture
mutantspace

very cool