# Old Mini Fridge into an A-Maze-N Cold Smoker!



## pops6927

As luck would have it, my 1.7 cu.ft. little cube fridge at work conked out; it was by Haier, a semi-conductor fridge (no compressor, semi-conductor hot/cold technology).  It was 3+ years old and used at work constantly so it's time had come; for Father's day I asked for gift cards so I could go buy a new fridge, this time a GE 4.5 cu. ft. floor model that holds much more, and is compressor driven (but Energy Star compliant!).

So... what to do with the little one?  A perfect cold smoker for a cold smoking device that generates little heat - the A-Maze-En smoking unit (patent pending)!   Sure, it's all plastic inside, but.. with little heat it should be little bother!   I wrote to Todd Johnson and asked his opinion and he said, "Sure! Go For It!" so here's what I came up with:

The Unit:


























Removed the semiconductor and fan plus the electronic board.  If you look from the inside, you see a supplementary fan inside the body.  It is moot if i cover up the hole, so I cut a piece of plywood and sealed it with caulking and screwed it down, plus put a little caulk on the drain hole to seal that.  Those were the only holes going into the inner chamber.













Got to fix dinner, will be back with more of the build!


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## jak757

Great idea Pops!  I love my AMS, and have been thinking of building a small smoke house/box.  This gives me some new ideas!

Looking forward to seeing the finished unit.


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## pineywoods

Great idea I look forward to more pics


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## tjohnson

Great Project Pops!!!

What are you gonna use for vents?

I can see Craigslist is gonna be busy tonight!!!

Todd


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## pops6927

Thanks!

Well, I've got the box sealed now with no holes to the outside.  Now to make an adjustable intake port and a smokestack out.  I went to Home Depot and they had cut pieces of PVC, 2' of 1" dia.  I got one piece of that, a couple 1" couplers, and a 1" right angle (one end was threaded but it didn't matter).  I also got an in-line valve, too. 

I used a 1½" bimetal holesaw and sawed a hole in the right middle of the top:













That's for the smokestack.

Now, on the side, I drilled the same size hole for the intake.  I also drilled through the shelf in the door too, didn't mean to do that but it won't have any affect on it; I widened it with a coping saw.
	

		
			
		

		
	







not going to use the space on the door for anything anyways, and I can cover up the exposed hole with some duct tape (of course!).
	

		
			
		

		
	







Then, I cut off a small piece of pipe after dry-fitting it into the valve:

I took one of the couplers and sawed off one end before the divider inside in the middle, making a ring.  I made a smokestack about 8" high, pushed the ring up the pipe,


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## pops6927

As I said before, I cut off a coupler.  The piece with the center divider I glued onto one end of the smokestack, and pushed up from the inside so that fitting was firm against the bottom of the hole.  Then I took one of the rings I made and fed it down from the top and glued it tight to the pipe at the top so the pipe could not slide down, pressing it down very quickly before the glue set (PVC Solvent, actually.. still a glue I guess!) affixing the pipe vertically.  Then, I glued on the right angle on top so rain wouldn't go straight down into the box.  I need to get a cap to screw into the threads to seal it.







Yes, I know it's dirty, I cleaned it all after I got done, lol!

The ring on top:







I sealed around the top ring with some white caulk.   Then, the finished smokestack:







Now for the intake valve; I glued a short piece of pipe to the valve and cut it off after dry-fitting to be only long enough to accept the ring.I positioned that on the opposite side near the front so it would waft over the A-Maze-En smokebox and up and out the other side out the chimney:







Again, I used another ring I cut off to affix the valve on the inside, quickly pushing it on after gluing.  I got it reasonably tight but it will still turn. It's an intake so it can let in a small fraction of air, but you can shut it from zero to full open with the valve, so you can adjust your intake.







Now, the intake and outtakes are done!







Next, whaddabout the plastic floor?  Well, just happened to have a full floor tile left over, so it fit perfectly on the bottom!







Lastly, the unit only came with one little shelf.  So, off to WalMart and I got two different shelves; a 3 tier spice rack and a 2 tier corner shelf:

The corner shelf:







The three tier rack:







The two labels:







Time to clean up and put the tools away; I've got test subjects to prey upon sitting in the back fridge awaiting their cold-smoke fate for tomorrow's test smoke!  I'll burn off the A-Maze-En unit on the grill first, seasoning it, then after cooling, we'll load 'er up and see how well this contraption will work!  Wish me luck! (Oh, BTW, I cleaned off all the foam tape on the door.. that was from a paper towel holder we'd attached at work!  It all came out clean!)


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## mythmaster

That's pretty cool, Pops!  
	

	
	
		
		



		
		
	


	





I'm guessing that you've got some cheeses or sausages to try out in that thing?


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## pops6927

Now I was telling my oldest son about this idea and his wife piped up, "Hey, up in the pool/rec room you've got that 4 cu. ft. fridge that's white that I hate... you could make a cold smoker out of that and I can get a stainless steel fridge that will go with the kegerator next to it!" with a big grin!  Then added.. "..and you know how much I love smoked cheese!" hitting him in the ribs, so I see another mod in the near future coming on if this works!


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## rbranstner

Sweet smoker Pops. Job well done!


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## fftwarren

cool, Im liking that. looks nice.


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## pineywoods

Looks great and I look forward to hearing how well it works and what if anything you'd change


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## tjohnson

Another First for SMF!!!

Cold Smoker Build.

Place a frozen a milk carton in the fridge.  I'd be curious to see what the temps are before and after you light the smoker.

Looks GREAT Pops!!

Todd


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## Bearcarver

Brilliant !

Brilliant !!

Brilliant !!!

Exceptional idea Pops !

I think you will need that frozen milk carton though, because that little guy is probably insulated way too good. It'll be holding all the heat the AMNS puts out. Even though the AMNS doesn't put out a lot of heat, I think that fridge will warm up fast without any ice in it. Could even get up to 140˚ or 150˚ with the door closed & no ice.

Let us know,

Bear


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## pops6927

Well, I did a little experimenting; I had a couple of frozen ice packs and put those in on the top shelf without any AMNS; it dropped the temp from 74° to 66°.  Then I added the AMNS with a small single run of dust in it lit, and a couple of cheese sticks.  The interesting thing is that the cold dropping down from the ice packs was inhibiting the upflow of the smoke out the chimney because there was little heat to create an airflow and it was being counteracted by the cold.  I held the lit torch to the intake on the bottom and got immediate results of smoke out the top; took it away and no smoke. But, opening the door the chamber was full of smoke.  Before opening, the temp had risen to 69° after about 30 minutes.

So, I removed the blocks of ice and I'm now waiting for it to level off and see what it's doing.  A few pics:

Starting temp:







With the ice:







It dropped one more degree to 66° right after shooting this pic:







test run of a small fill of dust to test with:







Now another thing too; if I fill it with several bricks of cheese straight out of the fridge, it should provide enough natural cooling that I wouldn't need ice.  Also, the outdoor temp at this time is 81° and inside the chamber it's 74°, probably from overnight cooling.


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## pops6927

The temp is now up to 87° and I do have positive airflow with smoke drafting out the chimney!  Outside temp is 82° so rise is only 5° so far after about ½ hr.







another pic:







I'll let it go another ½ hour, take a pic of the temp, then look inside to see how much burn I've got left.


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## pops6927

It's up to 108°, looked inside real quick, the burn is almost to the end and the cheese sticks are fine, no melting at all, still nice smoke in the chamber.
	

		
			
		

		
	













I don't think the internal will rise much more over outside ambient temp, about a 25° rise (it's 83° right now).  I think I'll load it up fully and restart it on a full smoke with no ice and see what happens during the day with 1 brick of cheese, then tonight I'll restart it with another brick and go overnight with it when it's cooler.  I've got cheddar to do today and monterey jack tonight.


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## Dutch

Nice little smoker you built there Pops! Looking forward to the full run results.


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## pops6927

Okeydokie!  We're off!  Cut the brick into 3 sticks to get more surface area, put them on the top shelf with the thermo, and filled up the AMNS to the brim with hickory:







In the smoker all lit, ready to go!  It's 9:45 am, will let it go hopefully to 8pm, will check on it occasionally during the day, only thing I can see going wrong is if the cheddar gets too hot and melts, otherwise it should smoke just fine!  The cheesesticks were delicious! lol!


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## Bearcarver

Great experiments Pops---Keep us posted----This is like a documentary!

"And that's the way it was"

Bear


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## mythmaster

Maybe you could put a milk carton of ice on the bottom if you can figure out a way to shield it from the heat of the smoker.  Dry ice might even work that way.

I'm no physicist -- just thinking out loud.


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## mythmaster

On second thought, dry ice wouldn't be very safe without some way to ventilate the carbon dioxide: http://www.howstuffworks.com/question264.htm


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## pops6927

Three hours in and we're up to 109°.  Wonder at what point the cheddar will soften considerably?  150° or so?  Or higher, maybe 180°?


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## pops6927

Well, I answered my own question - after the last post I decided to open the door and check it; yup, you guessed it, it'd softened already.  Hadn't gone thru the grates but was cut in deep.  I carefully pulled it out onto a plate and took a pic.  Now it's in the fridge hardening up for a second round of smoke.  I don't think my little frozen cubes could make much difference, but I'll try 'em!







But, the cuts through it opened up more surface area so it's all good!  I'll chill down for an hour and put back in.  Where's the 'off' switch on the AMNS? haha!


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## Bearcarver

That's what I thought.

I had mine go up pretty good on one of my smokes. All I did was open the door once in awhile. It takes it longer to build the heat with the door closed than it takes to get it down with the door open. My MES holds heat pretty good too, but probably not as good as your fridge/smoker.

Somebody else had theirs melt pretty good (I think it was SOB), but he said it really tasted great. Maybe if you crack the door open a little?

When you open the door to cool off, you lose heat & smoke, but it gets smokey in a minute or two when you close it again, but it takes awhile for the heat to go back up. At least that's the way it worked for me with an abient temp of about 80˚.

Bear


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## pops6927

Well, the proof is in the pudding.. what an A-MAZE-EN flavor!  After a 3 hour smoke, it's smoked enough!   I don't need to do it any longer.  I took the AMNS and shoveled out the dust about an inch away from the burn to stop it.  The cheese is in the fridge in a bag.. I just got to leave it alone (sob!).  But, I'll do some more tonight!

Wife and I decided to go to IKEA for a look-around, we usually go every 6 mo. or so, it's in Frisco, about an hour away.  More experimenting when we get home!


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## pops6927

Test no. 2 this morning; it's 78° out at 6:30 am.  Loaded it up with a brick of Pepper Jack, a larger brick of Monterey Jack, and a stack of 6 string cheese.  The Mont. Jack I split down the middle and put the three pieces on edge on a plate; the string cheese I stacked 3x3 on a smaller plate.  I started the other end of the AMNS (handy being able to do it that way!) to continue it smoking and put an ice brick on each side of it on the floor.
	

		
			
		

		
	







The temp was @ 76° before I opened the door, went up to 78° when I closed it, counteracting the cooling effect.  No noticeable smoke out the chimney yet but the cavity has smoke throughout it.

Coming back from Ikea we met our older son and his wife at Chili's just up the street from their house in Kennedale and I was telling him about yesterday's experiment.  He just said, "Yadda yadda yadda.. so WHERE"S MINE??!!" lol.  Guess I'll have to drive over a piece or two this morning, haha!  Both sons sure inherited dad's smoking passion!


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## pops6927

Just checked it at 8:45, the outside temp is 79° and in the box is 85°, smoke is wafting out the top pipe and the box has good smoke in it, nothing has melted so smoking has been going on for about 2 hours so far!


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## scarbelly

Great looking smoker Pops and a great idea for sure- nice build


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## pops6927

At 9:30 I changed out the ice bricks with 2 ice bags I had in the back freezer.  It had gotten up to 99° with outside temp of 83°; now at 10am it's down to 93°!  So by changing out the bricks every hour or so you can extend your smoke time or use larger ice, as Todd suggested frozen milk cartons, ziplock bags, etc. 

Also, by putting the cheese on plates it doesn't have the cutting effect of the grates.  The cheese is softened but not melting or misshapen.  I did turn it over on it's opposite side around 8:30 am and it's doing well and definitely has a brown darkening from the smoke!  The sticks I left alone, they're just sittin' and smokin'!
	

		
			
		

		
	













It's stabilized at 92° now until the pacs warm up, so with rotating some sort of iced body you can keep the temp down continuously enough to do a good smoke!  Now, our temp here today is cold at 83° (almost sweater weather! lol!).  If it's 110° then I think you'd have to be chilling quite a bit to keep it down in temp but you still should be able to cold smoke to some extent, or do it at night when it's 20° or more cooler.  You would have to babysit every couple hours changing out your icing packs. 

Of course, this is a tiny little box.  If you were to use a bigger one, 3.1 - 4.5 cu ft size, you should be able to control your temps very easily with the right amount of ice.  Keeping it on the floor eliminates the drafting problem, it cools the smoke as is emits from the AMNS keeping temps down more from the ground up.

And, at 60° in the fall  or winter, there'd be no problem whatsoever, it will make a convenient, easy-to-use cold smoker for any product!

Next project is to build a 4' tall, 1.5' square cold smoker that I can either hook up to the exhaust of my big smokehouse with a convoluted run of metal duct to dispell the heat but still deliver the smoke, or to use the AMNS in it when I'm not running the big smokehouse and have racks to do a larger amount of product!

I would definitely consider this project a total success and am totally impressed with the A-Maze-En smoke unit!  It delivered in spades!  The only thing I didn't try with it was to fill each row with different sawdust, so you start with hickory, go into apple, then cherry and finish with maple!  Now that would be quite a unique application you can use it for!


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## bbally

Nice set up Pops.

Might consider purchasing a variable speed low flow fan (computer chip cooler fans work well) and building a small induced draft system for the smoker.  It will get you more consistant results on smoke density.


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## Dutch

Glad that this is working out well Pops.  I have a 4.2 cf fridge here in my office at work; it's been a great little unit keeping the sodas cold and the lunches and suppers safe going on 10 years now. After reading the success that you have had, I've been sitting here thinking of ways to speed up it's eventual demise so I can order a replacement for it and "properly" disposing the old fridge.


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## pops6927

That nick in the electric cord could be dangerous and start a fire...


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## pops6927

Need my jackknife?? :)


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## smokingohiobutcher

Great job Pops!  Did the cheese that melted have more flavor than the cheese that softened?? Was the cheese that softened on the plate sweating?? Just wondering if the sweating allows for more smoke penetration?

SOB


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## tjohnson

Pops,

Great Post and follow up!!!

It's gonna be trial and error to figure out the correct amount of ice necessary to keep the temps down during warmer weather, but looks like you've got some great data so far.

Great Job!

Todd


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## pops6927

SmokingOhioButcher said:


> Great job Pops!  Did the cheese that melted have more flavor than the cheese that softened?? Was the cheese that softened on the plate sweating?? Just wondering if the sweating allows for more smoke penetration?
> 
> SOB


No, didn't have more flavor, the cheddar was about as soft as the others but being on the grate it sunk thru, the plate kept it from doing that holding its shape better.  Yes, they all were sweating, don't know if it allowed for more or not.  The sweat dried quickly tho once I took them out and refrigerated them.  The flavor was awesome however!


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## flyfishjeep

Great little build Pops!  I'm sure your neighbors are having to put their appliances under lock and key! 
	

	
	
		
		



		
		
	


	





   Thanks for the detaild pictures.


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## porkorama

Fantastic idea, Pops! Been thinking lately about smoking some homemade mozzarella and am now licking my chops even more!


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## meateater

Somehow I miss a post or two on here. Thats a great little smoker ya got there Pops. 
	

	
	
		
		



		
		
	


	





  The play by play was very informative.


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## stubborn

I realize this is an old thread, but it makes sense to bring it back for a question or two.  Hope nobody gets bent out of shape over it...

I'm working on doing this to a 4.3 cu.ft. unit, and have a couple of questions:

1.  Are those vinyl covered shelves, painted shelves, or plastic?  How are they holding up?

2.  My little fridge has a freezer compartment:







I plan to leave it in to throw blue ice in to help keep the temps down.  I'm concerned that this will block the flow of smoke if I put the exhaust in the top of the fridge.  Does it make sense to put it at the very top of the back panel instead, to pull the smoke around the obstruction?   Or will it actually be beneficial to slow the flow down to keep the smoke in the smoker longer?

Thanks.  I'll post pics once I get it started.  Well, maybe I will, if I can figure it out...


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## alelover

I know this post is old but... I want to build a cold smoker out of a full size fridge I have. Used to be my lagering fridge but it don't fridge no more. This post is very informative but I have some comments and questions. Dry ice would sublime to quick and not give too much of a cooling affect I would think. In that small space it may though. But it wouldn't last long. You'd have to experiment. Did you ever try it? If you want the smoker devoid of O2 then dry ice would take care of that. Why didn't you remove the fan completely and use it for something else? Just curious. Seems like a waste of a fan. Unless it's fried anyway. Do the 1" tubes give enough airflow through the box? They seem small to me. It seems to me that more airflow would also keep the temp down more. Did you smoke the cheddar for 10 hours? That seems long. Sorry to make your brain go back in time 10 months but I have an inquiring mind.


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## sean smith

Nice conversion job, I have being playing around with the same idea. A few thoughts/ideas
1). will converting a " working" mini fridge work and plugging it in while smoking work to keep temp. Low. Problems?
2) The elbow fitting on the exhaust vent does restrict smoke movement slightly. This is now horizontal ventilation V's  vertical ventilation.
3) Smoke source could be rigged up outside fridge and piped into fridge with the aid of a small fan.

Just some thoughts I'm dealing with , while pondering the best/most efficient way to convert a mini fridge. Any thoughts or opinions from fellow forum readers
Thanks, Sean


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## tjohnson

I would think a "Working Fridge" would work great for a cold smoker.  I keep searching Craigslist for a cheap one, but no luck so far

Intake and exhaust are very important.  A small computer fan may be a great addition to force fresh air into the fridge.

Todd


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## alelover

TJohnson said:


> I would think a "Working Fridge" would work great for a cold smoker.  I keep searching Craigslist for a cheap one, but no luck so far
> 
> Intake and exhaust are very important.  A small computer fan may be a great addition to force fresh air into the fridge.
> 
> Todd


I've wondered that too but I think the fan in the fridge blowing the cold air around would stop spinning after it got all gunked up with smoke residue. Would definitely keep temp down though.


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## Bearcarver

In my opinion, since you need an intake & an exhaust, you'd just be sucking warm air in & letting cold air out for a few minutes. Then it would change to sucking warm air in and letting warm air out, because the fridge wouldn't be able to keep up longer than the first minute or two.

IMO---You'd be better off not plugging it in, and just have places in the fridge set aside to put ice jugs or trays with ice.

Bear


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## tjohnson

I tried the computer fan thing before, but the outside temps we in the 50's....OOPS Forgot That small detail!

Bear is right, blowing in warm air would not be a good thing

TJ


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## stubborn

TJohnson said:


> I would think a "Working Fridge" would work great for a cold smoker.  I keep searching Craigslist for a cheap one, but no luck so far
> 
> Intake and exhaust are very important.  A small computer fan may be a great addition to force fresh air into the fridge.
> 
> Todd


Could you reverse the idea and have the fan pulling the air out the exhaust instead of pushing it in the intake?  You would still be force feeding air into the unit, but by pulling out of the top, it would be pulling the warmest air out.  Might be enough of a difference to matter.


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## bopplayer

I'm new to smoking, is he turning the fridge on? why do you need an air intake anyway?


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## smokeydez

The A-Maze-En smoking unit needs oxygen to keep the pelets/dust lit and generating smoke. It also gives off heat that could melt the cheeses, so you also need to draft air out of the unit to keep it from overheating and melting your product.

I was thinking about this and do you guys think you could use something like the Bradley BCOLD unit? This might allow you to keep the heat out of the smoker box and draft the smoke into the unit and out the top.


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## dragonmaster194

Helllo Pops, I just acquired a side by side ref to turn into a cold smoker.  I like your design, and will be copying it for the air flow.  For the large size of the ref side should I go larger than the 1" pvc you used?  I will be getting one of Todd's smoking devices, haven't decided which one yet, to generate the smoke.  Thanks, Steve


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## pops6927

In a full size fridge you'd probably want to use an air vent on the side on the bottom, and a 4" stove pipe w/roof cap for the outtake.  The Amazen has no problem filling the unit with smoke, use it on my full size smokehouse for cold and hot smoking (see Smokehouse in my sig line).


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## dragonmaster194

Thanks Pops, I was thinking of 2" inlet and 2" outlet.  I will go with 4" outlet like you suggest.  Do you think 2" inlet like yours at the bottom will be sufficient?  Thanks again, Steve


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## billy123

You can have it repaired or change it to something else,for example,a desk.I changed my best compact refrigerator into a desk,it is great!


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