Good mini fridge for fermenting dough?

[Quebert]

The main fridge here hardly ever has room plus it's opened like 500 times a day.  I want to find a small fridge to use just for proofing my dough. I know this has been asked here, but when I search I'm not finding anything. I use Doughmate Artisan boxes, so a fridge that is at least 18" wide and 14" deep inside's perfect, I want to use it just for my 4 doughmate boxes  so I'm looking for maybe a tabletop one. The Coke coolers at the local liquor stores looked about right, but I measured the inside and it was an inch short.  I remember seeing a few threads on here with people using wine refrigerators. I'm either finding tiny ones that won't fit, or ones that would work but are EXPENSIVE.  I would get a full size fridge and call it a day but there's a lady who wouldn't be happy. So I'm searching for something compact that's not $700+ 

I'm all ears for suggestions.

[barryvabeach]

Where I live, you can find used wine fridges pretty easily, for that matter,  used mini fridges as well. With  wine fridges, some do not use compressors, so they are very quiet, but can't chill more than 25 degrees or so from the room they are in,  which can be an issue if you want to keep it in a garage in warm weather.

[Pizza_Not_War]

The wine fridge I had was very uneven in it's temps. The variation from top to bottom could often be 15 degrees. So if you went with that you might need to install a fan to circulate the air. Basically a cheap wine fridge is just that, cheap. Craigslist is a great source for cheap used items like this.

I'd take a look at a used small chest freezer and hook it up to a simple temperature controller. I used to use mine as a beer kegerator and it was great. If you are handy you can dress it up to look like furniture.

[Samson]

Hi I'm curious if you had any success with a mini-fridge/wine cooler. I'm also looking for a dedicated proofing fridge and am not sure the best way to go. I'd like to find something that I can have enough room to store a few trays of dough. Thanks

[Quebert]

Hi I'm curious if you had any success with a mini-fridge/wine cooler. I'm also looking for a dedicated proofing fridge and am not sure the best way to go. I'd like to find something that I can have enough room to store a few trays of dough. Thanks

No I didn't, I looked for a while and gave up after everything I found was either too small, or too expensive. I just recently started to look again though. I stumbled upon the Samsung 11.4 convertible upright freezer. It has a switch that'll turn it into a fridge. I'm going to go check it out in person so I can get a better visual of many dough balls I can fit in it. Dunno what kind of trays you use, but the Dough Mate Artisan size ones would fit. It's dimensions are 28x24x72 so it could fit an absolute ton of those. I also like that it's way more narrow than a standard 2 door fridge and the space being a fridge is another plus to me. It's more $$$ than I want to spend, but depending on the size when I see it in person I might end up getting it.

I'm terrible with math, but I somehow came to the calculation it could fit 144 of the Ooni glass bowls I proof my dough in.  Honestly, I'd love to see something like this but half as tall, but the ones I'm finding that are smaller cost as much or more than this.

[Essen1]

Magic Chef from Home Depot.

[Samson]

Thanks I'll check it out.

[Heikjo]

I use a small six bottle wine cooler for my doughs. The temperature can be a degree or two different from one week to the next, but it works very well. I keep it at 15C/59F which also is a good temperature for a bottle of red wine if there is room. Our bananas also tend to live in there. Sometimes one can also find strawberries in it.