Thermoelectric wine cooler drying and curing - DIY

TCH

TCH

Well-Known Member
Blue brother said:
Man you are smashing this here @Hook Daddy, I’m so glad no dicks turned up here for u haha. Happy to see you’re making another too, what do u find is ur max wet volume u can fit in there? I found 15 oz bucked down to be the most I was comfortable putting in there.
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What does the 15oz wet equal once dried and cured?
 
Hook Daddy

Hook Daddy

Well-Known Member
Blue brother said:
Man you are smashing this here @Hook Daddy, I’m so glad no dicks turned up here for u haha. Happy to see you’re making another too, what do u find is ur max wet volume u can fit in there? I found 15 oz bucked down to be the most I was comfortable putting in there.
Click to expand...
I have never weighed it going in, but that sounds close, last time I’m guessing it was about 8 oz dry coming out. I pulled it at a few different times as I needed it so that’s not an exact number.
 
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Blue brother

Blue brother

Well-Known Member
Hook Daddy said:
I have never weighed it going in, but that sounds close, last time I’m guessing it was about 8 oz dry coming out. I pulled it at a few different times as I needed it so that’s not an exact number.
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Aw no I meant coming out, I cut all mine from the stemso I can get more in, I’m not sure which size I have either I’ll have to check haha
 
P

pahpah-cee

Well-Known Member
Last harvest I really just shoved as much as I could in there. the nugs really shrink down within two days. After a day or two I would rearrange my shelf’s to maximize it out. I weighed 486 grams (17oz) dried from one fridge. That particular strain was really dense.

If I could get more shelf’s then I’m sure I could add another 8oz.
 
Hook Daddy

Hook Daddy

Well-Known Member
My dehumidifier doesn’t come until midweek, oh well should have paid closer attention when ordering, I’m so used to two day shipping now I didn’t even look. How quickly we get spoiled.

Anyhow the cooler arrived so I took apart the cooler to drill the hole, I didn’t detail that much first round so here it is. Laying it on the door there are three screws holding the back panel and four holding the drip tray, remove all of them.

9228BFD3-7D92-48F9-ACF4-9D99F7BDA036.jpeg

Then there is a stop block on both sides, two screws each, remove these

E48562EE-C09B-4C7F-91B7-885310FC0572.jpeg

Once these are all removed the back panel will slide out leaving this

FD575134-C83D-4729-873E-B6CC39E6BEB3.jpeg

Next I drilled the hole. Once through the metal I stopped and vacuumed all the metal bits up so being careful not to get them in the electronics, then drill out the foam and through the inside of the cooler. Then I filed the edge of the hole a bit so it isn’t too sharp. Here’s how it looks.

F8DE7FBD-C302-4888-8703-4ABDFF304F6C.jpeg

I then drilled a hole in the back panel about the same place, again filing it some to get rid of any burrs and sharp edges.

D58FB14B-BEC9-49B7-BEE1-AD775C0EFC49.jpeg

Finally I passed the connector from the Inkbird dehumidifier through the back panel then the back of the cooler and used hot glue to mount it inside the cooler. I put it about the same place as last time, I figure it works and I want as much consistency between the two as possible.

21F84417-4BE0-497C-9D96-3AE2320CA562.jpeg

That’s about all I can do now until the dehumidifier arrives as far as the cooler goes. It took me roughly an hour and a half to get this far.
 
Nugnewbie

Nugnewbie

Well-Known Member
Hook Daddy said:
My dehumidifier doesn’t come until midweek, oh well should have paid closer attention when ordering, I’m so used to two day shipping now I didn’t even look. How quickly we get spoiled.

Anyhow the cooler arrived so I took apart the cooler to drill the hole, I didn’t detail that much first round so here it is. Laying it on the door there are three screws holding the back panel and four holding the drip tray, remove all of them.

View attachment 5308609

Then there is a stop block on both sides, two screws each, remove these

View attachment 5308610

Once these are all removed the back panel will slide out leaving this

View attachment 5308611

Next I drilled the hole. Once through the metal I stopped and vacuumed all the metal bits up so being careful not to get them in the electronics, then drill out the foam and through the inside of the cooler. Then I filed the edge of the hole a bit so it isn’t too sharp. Here’s how it looks.

View attachment 5308612

I then drilled a hole in the back panel about the same place, again filing it some to get rid of any burrs and sharp edges.

View attachment 5308613

Finally I passed the connector from the Inkbird dehumidifier through the back panel then the back of the cooler and used hot glue to mount it inside the cooler. I put it about the same place as last time, I figure it works and I want as much consistency between the two as possible.

View attachment 5308614

That’s about all I can do now until the dehumidifier arrives as far as the cooler goes. It took me roughly an hour and a half to get this far.
Click to expand...
I finally ordered a cooler. Haven't ordered the dehumidifier yet. I just harvested a little over a month ago, so I won't need to dry anything for quite a while as I don't grow in the summer. My next harvest won't be until December or January.
What I was thinking by purchasing the wine cooler now is to store my present harvest. If the temperature is set at 60 degrees, would the humidity stay in an acceptable range for longer storage? Or would installing the dehumidifier with inkbird control be the only way to keep humidity at an appropriate level? As I am typing this out I am thinking the dehumidifier and inkbird would be the only way to do that, but curious what others think. I live in a fairly dry climate, but of course, humidity still fluctuates through the course of a normal day, not sure if ambient humidity levels would affect humidity inside the cooler that much. And, because my harvest is inside Grove bags and some jars, will it even matter what humidity levels are, as long as temperature is somewhat constant, and closer to 60 degrees. What do you all think?

Btw: Thank you again for posting your work Hook Daddy. I'm not the handiest, so showing how you did it sure is a big help.
 
Hook Daddy

Hook Daddy

Well-Known Member
Nugnewbie said:
I finally ordered a cooler. Haven't ordered the dehumidifier yet. I just harvested a little over a month ago, so I won't need to dry anything for quite a while as I don't grow in the summer. My next harvest won't be until December or January.
What I was thinking by purchasing the wine cooler now is to store my present harvest. If the temperature is set at 60 degrees, would the humidity stay in an acceptable range for longer storage? Or would installing the dehumidifier with inkbird control be the only way to keep humidity at an appropriate level? As I am typing this out I am thinking the dehumidifier and inkbird would be the only way to do that, but curious what others think. I live in a fairly dry climate, but of course, humidity still fluctuates through the course of a normal day, not sure if ambient humidity levels would affect humidity inside the cooler that much. And, because my harvest is inside Grove bags and some jars, will it even matter what humidity levels are, as long as temperature is somewhat constant, and closer to 60 degrees. What do you all think?
Click to expand...
If you have the harvest in grove bags and jars it will be fine in the cooler without the dehumidifier. I have a standard compressor based wine cooler that I store seeds and stuff in grove bags already. No problem.
 
Hook Daddy

Hook Daddy

Well-Known Member
I decided since I was building another dry/cool box I needed two things right away. Something more available for a shelving solution, and a name for the project. Here’s my solution for the shelving this round. I found this on Amazon, it’s made to line shelves of dehydrators and grills, it’s a mesh with much more airflow than the silicone mats most people have been using, more similar to the stainless mesh I had used on the last one. Here’s the product I chose, many different brands for the same price, same size…


70295FED-D981-44A8-9585-A81A7EB61158.jpeg

I took a sheet and place it on top of the shelf, then ran tie wraps through the bottom and around and secured it to the existing shelves. Looks just like the stainless ones I made, but cheap and easy. If you have the same shelves they have two rails, tie wrap to the inner rail so the tie wrap doesn’t interfere with the shelf sliding in and out.

D12EF003-635E-49DC-8B89-8EE236173759.jpeg

I trimmed the edges and the tie wraps and they look great. Ready to dry and cure. I didn’t do the bottom shelf yet, I will have to modify it for the dehumidifier still.

03118AA9-C59A-4321-98CA-AEB68845D3B2.jpeg
 
TCH

TCH

Well-Known Member
Hook Daddy said:
I decided since I was building another dry/cool box I needed two things right away. Something more available for a shelving solution, and a name for the project. Here’s my solution for the shelving this round. I found this on Amazon, it’s made to line shelves of dehydrators and grills, it’s a mesh with much more airflow than the silicone mats most people have been using, more similar to the stainless mesh I had used on the last one. Here’s the product I chose, many different brands for the same price, same size…


View attachment 5308726

I took a sheet and place it on top of the shelf, then ran tie wraps through the bottom and around and secured it to the existing shelves. Looks just like the stainless ones I made, but cheap and easy. If you have the same shelves they have two rails, tie wrap to the inner rail so the tie wrap doesn’t interfere with the shelf sliding in and out.

View attachment 5308727

I trimmed the edges and the tie wraps and they look great. Ready to dry and cure. I didn’t do the bottom shelf yet, I will have to modify it for the dehumidifier still.

View attachment 5308728
Click to expand...
Nice!!!! I was wondering what the best option for that was gonna be. This looks to fit the bill just fine.
 
Hook Daddy

Hook Daddy

Well-Known Member
I got the new cooler up and running, and calibrated the Inkbird. I just put 4 small hygrometers in and let them settle out, then took the average and set the Inkbird to that, should be close enough. I took several of the biggest colas from each plant and did a quick trim of all the fans, and cut them off the stalks so just a bunch of nugs, and loaded the cooler up. I set the temp for 64, the starting rh was about 75, so I set the dehumidifier to 68 to start off.

Here’s the first two shelves loaded up.
 

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Hook Daddy

Hook Daddy

Well-Known Member
The cooler is maintaining 64f and dropping to 68 rh no problem, so I dropped the rh setting to 64 with a difference value of 4, meaning it will cycle between 64 and 68 rh, keeping at 64f. My goal is to slowly drop the rh to 59 in order to achieve a VPD of about .75.
 
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