My New Cheese Cave

[Louise]

Ooo, I am so very excited as I have bought a  small trial size cheese cave and its being delivered tomorrow morning (UK time).  Its a Husky Wine Cooler.

The Specs are and info given are:
Temperature range from 8C to 18C perfect for red, rose or white wine.
Capacity 48 litres.
Stores up to 16 wine bottles (75cl).
Interior light.
• Digital touch-screen temperature control
• 4  shelves
• Compressor-free thermoelectric technology

I paid £40 for it  - so hopefully its a little bargain 

Just need to get the rest of the gear together now 

[Cheese Head]

Looks good, in case you haven't found them, there are several threads on Wine Coolers, just use the Search utility. They may give you some ideas of getting around your curvy shelves.

[Louise]

Thanks for that John (CH).

I have had it running for 10 hours, and I am finding that its not reaching the lower temps of 8 C/46 F as expected.  As an initial test I put some ice cold beer tins in it, left them (whilst I went to work - hoping for a refreshing drink on my return  ) to find that this thing had actually warmed them up!? At the moment its at 16 C/60 F, though this is due to putting 500g of frozen mince in the bottom.    This unit utilizes Compressor-free thermoelectric technology, and ambient temperature of the room will affect the chilling capability, though the room in which it is in is actually a lot colder - very strange?? 
Possibly I will have to just run it with a few ice blocks inside which may help on the humidity requirements and lower the temp.  Im hoping to make semi-hard cheeses, so testing times ahead.  Thankfully it was cheap, but hoping it may do the job with a few tweaks and modifications.

[Louise]

Plus:

Any recomendations on the temperature for a semi-hard cheese cave & humidity?

Thanks 

[Hande]

Hello Louise,
You are fine with 10-12c.
Humidity depends cheese type and how long you trying ripe them.Over 80% would be good.

How cold yours room is? If it is too cold it would be problem ?
Your's Husky manual says:
   It is recommended you install the Wine Cooler in a place where the ambient temperature is between 23o-26ox/72o-78of. If the ambient temperature is outside this range, the performance of the unit may be affected. Placing your unit in extreme cold or hot conditions may cause interior temperatures to fluctuate and the range of 8o-18ox/46o-65of may not be reached.

Hande

edit: My other fridge is thermoelectric system too.
I notice that it start heating fridge if you set temperature much high. There is some kind heating system.
I wonder if yours cave sensor get some wrong info and start warm it. But I'm really not expert...

[zenith1]

Louise-good luck with your new cave,I'm sure your excited to begin using it. The temperature range should be around 42/43F-50/52F with a RH of 85-90%. You are probably going to need a temperature controller to keep you in the sweet spot. You are also going to have to be innovative in you humidity control process, those types of coolers typically cause you some grief with regards to RH-still doable though.

[Louise]

Unfortunately it turns out that this one I have bought is faulty    and is being returned thankfully getting a full refund - I thought the price was too good to be true.  I am now investigating a commercial bottle fridge which operates within a 5 to 15 C range.

[Tomer1]

I reckon not faulty but just doesnt suit your needs,
These Thermoelectricly  cooled units can only do about 10c of heat reduction and are only 20-25% as efficient as conventional gas compression coolers.
Their main strong point is no moving parts so their dead quiet and small size so you have near zero space waste to electrical\mechanical parts.
People who "understand" wine say its forbiden to have vibrations near wine and that it damages it.

So If your living in a warm area where your hitting 30c mid-day it will only get you to 20c which is fine for wine storage but no good for cheese making.

[Louise]

I reckon not faulty but just doesnt suit your needs,

Nope this one was faulty. Ambient room temperature 23C which should have brought the chill inside the unit to 8 - 10c.  This one just wanted to stay at 22c + .  Turns out it was faulty!   

Just exchanged it with a Husky 48 litre bottle fridge (refrigerant type) to replace it, which the inside  temp I have at  the mo is 15c with humidity at about 70.  Using a Honeywell HH200E Ultrasonic Vase Humidifier and a NScessity: Digital Thermometer/Hygrometer .  Still a bit of tweaking to do yet. But very happy overall with this new fridge/CAVE 

[iratherfly]

I rend to agree with Tomer. I insisted on paying 3 times as much to get an actual wine fridge and not a thermoelectric wine cooler. The difference is night and day. They don't cool well and must work very hard to make up for temperature changes.  Moreover, they are EXTREMELY UNRELIABLE and break down a lot. In fact, many manufacturers don't stand by their warranty or give 90-180 day warranty on them because they just don't trust that they will work.  Read some product reviews on these online and you will consistently see that all the brands have very low reviews with people complaining that it was not working from day one or that it stopped working less than a year after they bought it.

To me it's a no-brainer. I just can't afford a cheese cave not working when I am out of town and destroying dozens of expensive wheels of cheese that took painstaking mon work to fabricate and months of care

[mrsick44]

Hi all!
I'm a new cheese-aficianado and I/m a bit disillusioned. I too, bought a small wine cooler (wine cellar) to make into a temporary cheese cave until I have enough money to buy a thermostat for the chest freezer I have. I was excited unitl I read this post, but c'est la vie. Once I get the thermostat for my chest freezer I hope that these will make nice drying caves. I got two for 40 on Craigslist and they are 2 years old. As for humidity control,can I use nano humidity beads...like the kind they use in cigar humidors? They sell them on Amazon and they work (at least for cigars)
I've posted the specs and some pics. On second thought, I'm still excited. I'm that much closer to getting where I want to go...cheesy goodness
http://www.vinotemp.com/View.aspx/2971/12-Bottle-Thermoelectric-Wine-Cellar-(iCellar)

[Tomer1]

2 for 40 is practically free,
When summer arrives you will be able to tell if they get the job done or your gone have to post 2 for 40 on craigslist