Welcome to TheOhioOutdoors
Wanting to join the rest of our members? Login or sign up today!
Login / Join

DIY Deer Cooler

Seeing Giles post about adding a AC unit to cool deer made me think of something I built a couple of years ago that has worked great.

Since we butcher our own deer I have always wanted to have a walk-in cooler in which to hang them. I have looked at a lot of DIY deer coolers, but I could never figure out a cheap way of building one. I have always in the past quartered the deer and put them into a spare refrigerator. The issue with this is I could only put 2 in at a time and the quarters had to be put into pots instead of hanging. After looking around I finally came up with this idea.

I bought a deep freezer at an estate sale and then got a thermostat controller that you plug the freezer into which allows you to run the freezer as a refrigerator. These controls are typically used for making a freezer into a kegerator. The great thing about this is if I need to use it as a freezer I can unplug the it from the control and plug into directly into the wall. No wiring to do.

For the stands of the rack I used a 2X8 across the bottom with 2X4's for the sides and the top. They are not hooked to the freezer in anyway, but are just setting in there. This way they can be easily removed for cleanup. I got 3/4" EMT conduit to use to hang the quarters from. To hang the quarters I just use ziptie's

I painted the wood after the first pics.

Here is a link to the thermostat control.
http://www.learntobrew.com/store/it...hermostat_Digital_Temperature_Controller.html

Cost of deer cooler.

Used freezer from estate sale $120
Temp Controller $70
Lumber/Conduit $30

I have had 4 or 5 deer in it at a time and could fit a couple more. The 3rd pic has 4 deer in it. I removed a couple of pans of meat to take the pic.











 

Milo

Tatonka guide.
8,184
157
Nice build. They have a new controller out that is only like 20 bucks. ATC is the brand in Amazon and it really easy to set up. Yours is a high end one! But nice job!