The Unsung Member - Paul

The Orlando Craft Brew Club would not have had the initial success or the ability to up the production without Paul, our Coldspot Chest Freezer. Being located in Central Florida gives us a slight disadvantage to our brew friends up north. We don't have basements because of our geology, or any locations in our houses that can store fermenting beer without major climate control devices.

We were fortunate enough to have 1 wine chiller at Micheal's house and Sugar was able to purchase another one for $20 at a neighbor's yard sale. Hoppes was our inventive member and built a chiller box from online plans, equipped with a thermostat and fan, and only requires the changing out of 1 gallon ice chugs every other day. Either way, that only gave the OCBC the ability to have 3 carboys in the mix at one time. With us having so many members and so many of us with great ambition about what we could be making, we needed another option.

The best solution that we could come up with was a large capacity chest freezer with a thermostat override. The only challenge would be to find one that was used, in good condition, and reasonable in price. Luckily for us, Craigslist has lots of cheap appliances and we were able to find a Sears Coldspot Freezer for $100. Perfect!

Sugar and I traveled across town and picked up the freezer from an older gentleman by the name of Paul, which the freezer has been dubbed. This freezer has been babied for the past 30 years and has been kept in mint condition. It appeared that it was being used to store enough frozen vegetables to survive the "zombie Apocalypse". Now it will get to spend its final days helping us brew fine beer.

The Northern Brewer thermostat allows us to control Paul to whatever temperature our brews require. We can now use the mini-chillers to brew our lagers and cold fermenting brews and keep the ales in Paul. Now all we need is another smaller chest freezer to get a keg and tap system going. Its only a matter of time.