Fridge Thermostats - "Fixing" To Enable Cheese Cave Temperatures

[Cheese Head]

Many members use fridges as cheese caves, yet buy an external thermostat (such as Johnson Controls) to override and control the fridge's temperatures as the thermostat in the fridge will not allow the temperature to be warm enough for cheese aging.

First, why do most fridge's built-in thermostat not allow it to go warm enough (ie 10-15C / 50-60F)?

Second, instead of buying another external thermostat for ~USD75, is there a simple way to adjust/fix this?

[MrsKK]

I was hoping you'd get some answers on this, John, because used refrigerators are really easy to come by for nothing and it would be nice to "fix" one for use as a cheese cave without having to wire in an external thermostat.

Next time I'm in town, maybe I will have to swing by the appliance repair shop and see if they can give me an answer.

[Alex]

John,

My new Samsung can go up to 8 deg C. I suppose limiting the thermostat ability is because of food keeping regulation, looking from health point of view.

[fastdogbrewing]

A lot of the DIY'ers in the homebrew community have had a lot of luck using cheap home thermostats.  You can get a digital one for like $25.  You would need a relay to control the AC with the 24V signal, but you can get one of those pretty cheap online as well.

There are a few people who even have taken apart the thermostats and added an exstension to the thermistor so they can have the thermostat on the outside of the ferment chamber and the thermistor on the inside.

[fastdogbrewing]

A lot of the DIY'ers in the homebrew community have had a lot of luck using cheap home thermostats.  You can get a digital one for like $25.  You would need a relay to control the AC with the 24V signal, but you can get one of those pretty cheap online as well.

There are a few people who even have taken apart the thermostats and added an exstension to the thermistor so they can have the thermostat on the outside of the ferment chamber and the thermistor on the inside.

Here is a page on a fermentation chamber
http://www.wortomatic.com/articles/38DD-Mother-of-a-Fermentation-Chiller
Here is the write up on the thermostat.
http://www.wortomatic.com/articles/Remote-Sensing-DIY-Controller-for-Less-Than-$25