Author Topic: Wine cellar (cheese cave) temp control help!  (Read 1488 times)

Spoons

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Wine cellar (cheese cave) temp control help!
« on: August 14, 2015, 08:00:34 PM »
Hi everyone!

I haven't participated in these boards in a while now! I'll be back more frequently this Fall. Always a great place for resources and encouragement here!

I have a cave issue and want to ask some of the DIY pros here about this:

We live in a tiny modern condo. We're looking to create a "bar" area where we want to display our wine bottles and aging cheese wheels (mostly sealed wheels) in a nice looking wine cellar. All the higher end wine cellars have built-in digital controllers and I just don't know how reliable those built-in controllers are. Here's what we are looking into:

http://www.distributionsavantgarde.ca/?page=produit&manuID=3&serie=9&id=113&l=EN

I've been using digital controllers like JohnPC sells and even the Johnsson digital controllers over the years with a couple of manually temp controlled wine cellars (the cheap ones). This has been working admirably for me! but we need to change the look... Superficial, I know...

So, I've been wondering; Does anyone here rely on built-in digital temperature controlled wine cellars? are they reliable? how precise are they? Do temperature fluctuate much?

... or, would anyone recommend or know how to replace a built-in digital controller with a more precise external one? 

SOSEATTLE

  • Guest
Re: Wine cellar (cheese cave) temp control help!
« Reply #1 on: August 15, 2015, 01:16:57 AM »
I have a small dual temp digital control wine cooler that I use for a cheese cave and I have found it extremely accurate. I have double checked with a "analog" thermometer and another digital temp. controller and it is spot on. The only issue I have, and this is typical of the smaller wine coolers, is that they do not hold temperature when exposed to warm temperatures. They just can't keep up. Most of them will tell you this in the user manual. It makes warm summers a challenge since I have no air conditioning. I have found that placing frozen cold packs in a tray in the bottom of the cooler solves the problem.


Susan

John@PC

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Re: Wine cellar (cheese cave) temp control help!
« Reply #2 on: August 16, 2015, 02:00:08 PM »
I've been off for awhile too, Eric (my wife would say I've been "off" for much longer than that ::)).  I would think that a digital wine cooler would be very accurate.  External thermostats like ours and Johnson Controls work good with standard fridges but as long as the coolers thermostat let you get to your cheese target temp. it should do fine on it's own.

Spoons

  • Guest
Re: Wine cellar (cheese cave) temp control help!
« Reply #3 on: August 16, 2015, 08:46:59 PM »
Thanks Susan & John! This is quite reassuring! I guess the cheese cave just needs to stay out of direct sunlight and should be fine. Not too long ago, all wine cellars were analog, now, they all have digitally controlled thermometers and aren't well documented in the world of hoe cheese making. I'm looking forward to making the switch :)