Have you ever made a deer cooler?
 

I'm building a shed this summer and I'm going to add a small deer chiller/cooler on the end. I'm looking for ideas as for what to use for a chilling unit. One guy here at work has made one before and he used a cheap air conditioner for a chiller. Have you ever made one and what did you use for a chiller?

RE: Have you ever made a deer cooler?
 

We have one at our deer camp, it's actuallya older milk delivery truckstorage unit that wasrefrigerated(not sure what type chiller?). We just mounted hanging bars on each side of the unit and it was finished.

RE: Have you ever made a deer cooler?
 

I don't think an air-conditioner is what you need. We built on several years ago up at the club. It was about 12 x 14 feet and 8 feet high with a sliding hanger rack from the skinning area right into the cooler. Luckily a member was closing a restaurant and he donated the unit to the club. It probably depends on the outside temps in your area.

RE: Have you ever made a deer cooler?
 

I've never done it before, but I've heard if you use sheets of the foam insulation and sandwich a few of those between plywood for each wall, it proves to be very effective at holding a temperature and then you can use something very small to cool it and it will stay cold for a long time.

RE: Have you ever made a deer cooler?
 

^^That's how I've always seen it done.............^^
Insulate the top bottom and sides and a smallwindow air conditioner will do the trick.

RE: Have you ever made a deer cooler?
 

Sunglasses and a Hawailan shirt would make any deer cooler.

RE: Have you ever made a deer cooler?
 

We made our first cooler using exterior grade decking plywood and foam insulation. Webuilt the frame out of 2x6, pressure treated pine. The foam panels were cut to fit on the 24" center 2x6 studs.We lined the inside walls and roof with what I call "shower stall/bathroom" plastic paneling. Itcleans up easily. Our cooleris essentially a box 8'x12' box that is 8' tall. We use an inexpensive 8000 BTU, 240 ac AC as the cooling unit. We bought 1rather narrow chromed steel shelf rack for one side for quartered meat , and built a hanging rackfrom steel pipe for hanging field dressed deer on the other.The floor is concrete with a center drain hole leading into a 3" PVC pipe that extends past the foundation about 10'.Be sure to use a drain grate of some sort. We did noit and had rats nesting in the cooler during the off season. We fixed that pronto. The door is made the same as the walls. We used a sort of soft seal like material similar to auto door seal rubber for the door seal. The unit runs basically at the lowest setting.We installed a thermostat control on the unit that is set at 34F with a band with of about +/- 2F.We have a good thermometer stuck through the wall with the sensor unit inside the refridgerated space. Thiskeeps us aprised of the interior temp witout requiring us to open the door. Here this far south the temperatures in the "fall" canrun around 90F or better. At first the unit could not hold the temp low enough for safe 2-3 day storage (40F) during hot weather. We decided to try enclosing thecooler box inside a tin shed. That did the trick.Even when it iswarm the cooler stays right at 36F max. This project was a lot of work and a good deal of expense. I am not sure it has been worth the effort. Most folks stay only 1-2-3 days in camp and either take their deer 40 mi. to a processor, or skin --- quarter and ice down in their ice chest.There are very seldomm more than 3-4 deer in the cooler. I use it only during very hot weather when ice melt is rapid.If I had to do over again, I would not !!

RE: Have you ever made a deer cooler?
 

Go check out your Milk Company that delivers. They usually sale their trucks really cheap. We have bought two, 400.00 dollars each.

RE: Have you ever made a deer cooler?
 

I remodeled a kitchen once that was use as a market many years before. There had been a cooler in it and some of it still remained. They used cardboard layer,must have been 5 anyways. Each layer was seperated by awoodden frameto create air spaces in between each layer. You could pretty much build the box for free. The chiller, from where your from I'd say get yourself some ice saws and have at it.:D

RE: Have you ever made a deer cooler?
 

I was looking to builda cooler as well. ended up with a box 4x8x8. 1/4 inch hard styro on inside , had luxury of avail piece on concrete to put it on . spoke to Cooling repairman. said forget A/C , for 1 week ? get a piece of dry ice , size of a masonary brick. put in cooler, open lid during day, close at night based on temp inside. no need for power or noise /cost of A/C unit.
chunk of ice is about $20 . Also depends on how cool nights are in your area, works for us. NW Ontario. w.