Building a chamber instead of converting a refrigerator. Charcuterie

I've thought a lot about this and taken many measurements and realized that due to various sizing reasons getting even a small fridge into my basement would be excruciatingly difficult. Narrow doors, cabinets too close to the basement door, and several awkward 90 degree turns make it so that it wouldn't be impossible, but it's way more work than I can commit to.

It occurs to me that what I can do is build a chamber taking things down a piece at a time.

My current rough idea is a full height chamber, probably 3 feet deep, eight foot wide. A door on the front that's reasonably sealed. I want to line the inside with showerboard and seal seams with food grade silicone caulk.

For those not familiar with shower board, sometimes called tile board or marker board, it's a 4x8 sheet of 1/8" thick hardboard coated in a thick, white glossy resin on one side.

It's intended to be used in a shower environment, so it's fully waterproof and the surface looks like a white board. People actually buy it and use it for that it works perfectly with white board markers. Based on everything I know about it and how I'm thinking of using it I should not have any problems associated with runaway mold blooms any more than if it were lined with plastic or metal.

So here's the questions I can't answer.

I am considering using a small window AC or similar to cool it, though in my basement I don't think it will run very often. I'll do the same small humidifier that others use, and high quality temp/humidity controls.

I have one question in two parts.

• I see people building fridges out and adding air circulation. Others are doing it without. What are the best practices around circulating air through the chamber. I've got enough electronics skills that a small computer style fan could gently circulate the whole time or be on a timer. Venting in from the outside, as I've seen, seems a bad idea but I don't know.

• The problem with using an AC unit is that it's a blower. It's very definitely going to blow in cold air at a pretty decent rate. If the air flow above is a bad idea this seems to be a really bad idea.

I've read all about the coolbot, but nearly $800 for the unit and the AC seems way overkill for this.

I also thought about a small dorm fridge with the door removed and the opening connected to the wall of the chamber. I know I've seen the homebrewers use this model for cold fermenting chambers.

Any suggestions are welcome. I've read every post in this sub and googled every possible combination of terms I could find.

Submitted April 14, 2017 at 08:19PM by MrCharismatist http://ift.tt/2nMYnu8 Charcuterie