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Seemed like a good price

These are in stock at St. John's, Newfoundland Princess Auto as of two days ago. Price is $ 139.99

I'm using one of those right now, modified with a collar, it has worked great for me since i picked it up at the St John's Princess Auto in september.

The one caution - they are refurbs or scratch and dent models, so be sure to check to make sure they work as soon as you get them. We picked up a dud at PA in Dartmouth over the summer. No hassle on the return, just delayed my cousin's kegerator build by a day or so.

Yes like Derek said check before you leave the store! They had 4 when i went in and i picked the best of the bunch.

Moncton Princess Auto is moving to a new location on the 14th, had 4 of them on the floor, may be an opportunity to get a deal. I already haggled with them on a couple of small items and got them for 50% off.

Do you need to modify these to fit a standard 23 L carboy (i.e. if you turn it into a fermentation chamber?)

You'd probably have to put a collar on it, yeah. The wide-mouth fermenters will fit, but not with a normal airlock. A normal 6g will not (too wide to go in front of the compressor hump, to tall to go on it). Not sure about a 5g.

Couldn't tell you about better bottles or pails.

I have a regular noble grape 6 gallon primary fermenting bucket that fits in my small fridge. There isn't room for a regular airlock, but you can easily put a blowoff tube. I really like this setup.

I have the 23 L glass carboy that they sell at NG and have been able to fit it in this fridge (or at least a very similar model) in the past. This was before I modified the door to fit two kegs and I needed to have something heavy up against the door to keep it from popping open - now that the superfluous plastic shelving is gone I think it will work better.

To get the plastic fermenting bucket in there, I had to rig up a little shelf so it would sit on that and the compressor hump. Definitely no room for an airlock in that situation, but a blow-off would work as CartoonCod said.

Your mileage may vary!

darciandjenn wrote:I have the 23 L glass carboy that they sell at NG and have been able to fit it in this fridge (or at least a very similar model) in the past. This was before I modified the door to fit two kegs and I needed to have something heavy up against the door to keep it from popping open - now that the superfluous plastic shelving is gone I think it will work better.

To get the plastic fermenting bucket in there, I had to rig up a little shelf so it would sit on that and the compressor hump. Definitely no room for an airlock in that situation, but a blow-off would work as CartoonCod said.

Your mileage may vary!

Oh right, there are at least two styles of glass carboys: the shorter, wider smooth-sided ones and the taller, narrower ones with "bands". The latter might fit in front of the hump (especially a 5g version), the former will (probably) not. Probably still going with a blowoff tube either way. I suspect you'd want to remove the shelving in the door in any case though (whether you're building a kegerator or a ferm chamber).