turning a spare bedroom into a beer cellar

Can you minimize the amount of light that hits the beer?

 

That should be fine. It isn't optimal cellaring temperature, but I guarantee that the majority of us are not using optimal cellaring temperatures for our beer.

As far as guests go, I'll assume you don't have guests all the time and that you will still have room for the guests despite all the beer.

Personally, I "cellar" my beer in my living room, because we rent a single-level condo. I built a floor to ceiling display case out of wood and matched it to the rest of the furniture. I definitely don't have great temperature control, but I deal.

 

Why not go with a closet cellar? The cost to chill a whole room with a window AC like that is ridiculous. Plus the second enemy of aging (after very high temperatures) is quick temperature swings. You don't want your temp yoyo-ing from 72 to 60 and back in short order.

 

How many beers are you trying to cellar and how large is the room? Instead of a fridge you could get a freezer and turn it into a cellar.

 

Cooling a whole room non stop just to keep beer cool seems to be overkill. I am sure you value the beer you are cellaring, but how about drinking more and cellaring less and save yourself the headache of cellaring all the extra beer.

 

lol!

 

OP, how about looking into the monthly cost of a temperature-controlled small storage unit?

Keep the beer you need at home for drinking and trading in your fridge and wine cooler, and store the rest off-site.

 

If you have room, I would look at a double door store type cooler, like a Truecool unit. Maybe put window tint on the glass. The whole room idea will be expensive and has lots of challenges.

 

MX, i too live in florida (maybe we will run across each other one time at a crazy CCB release or smooth swamphead release lol). i have two coolers that are like bar coolers (the bigger one is in my avatar that keeps ipas, pales, etc at 32-35 degrees). I have another cooler that has a swinging door and it kills my electricity bill. now, these are kept on a "florida room" with vinyl windows, so there is light that shines in, but not in the cooler. I also have ran out of storage space,s o i keep the rest of the beers in a storage bar compartment that doesnt see sunlight either. I have a 40,000 btu window AC that hums pretty much all day to keep the room comfortable when i am out there (if it is not at a low baseline temp, it can never catch up until night time). needless to say, my 2 coolers and AC running basically double my AC bill each month. luckily, my mortgage is rather low so i can continue to have these luxuries. Good luck in finding a solution. it is hard to figure out what to do in the sunshine state!

 

I've wondered what the electrical usage would be on those coolers.

 

im an florida too. i use walk in closet. i put the beers in boxs. with the ac on in the summer it stays about 70 in there. not ideal but it works until i get a upright temp controlled freezer.

 

As others have said, consider converting a closet, not a whole room.

Also, there is a lot more info out (books, websites, etc) there regarding home wine cellars than home beer cellars, which are more or less the same minus the racking allowing wine to be laid on its side. Do some research on wine cellars and adapt what you find to your needs

 

I would get some 2x4's, a door, some sealing strips, and some insulation and box in a corner of the spare bedroom with a 5x5 foot "closet" that's well insulated and has an AC unit built into the side of it. You can buy proper cellar cooling units that mount like AC units, and probably get one that you can plumb to outside. Depending on space you could also build a "false wall" with a door where the cellar is 3 or 4 feet deep and spans the width of the bedroom.

That should make room for 500 - 1000 beers depending on design, and leave the guest room intact (just a bit smaller). It would be a bit of construction, but would be super badass. If I owned our place rather than renting, it's what I would have done.