Have you checked to see how cold it gets on the lowest setting? I have an old one that stays around 40 degrees on it's lowest setting. It shouldn't be hard to change out the thermostat. I have replaced them before. WW Grainger sells them.

Here is a link that might be useful: Thermostat

Harvest...here you go...my setup:

{{gwi:123947}}

That is a Johnson Control tstat... The chest freezer broke when we moved it (the door flew up and snapped off!) so I converted it. I can fit a lot of apples in that baby.

Any decent brewing supply store should be able to sell you one and help you with the set up. I would like to plant 9 apple trees this spring, but I am fundamentally dissatisfied with Axel's idea. How do you move ethylene out of the chest freezer? I have considered a large wooden box, with a fan at the bottom on a timer, dime-size holes at the top, and designated slots for 2 to 4 5-gallons buckets of ice.

How is this better than a refrigerator?

Glib, I don't believe you have to move ethylene out of the freezer. At near freezing what you get is low oxygen- high carbon dioxide to create a controlled atmosphere affect. I store apples in a normal fridge and there's no removal of ethylene going on and I still get great storage- except that some fruit shrivels because of defrost.

ltilton-

humidity. You want it near 100% and you want temps down towards freezing (32F-34F).

Chest freezer converted for this purpose uses very little electricity.

I ordered the Johnson digital unit from Sears on-line although I probably could have found something adequate for quite a bit less cost.

HM, I am sure your data are reliable but, is the fridge vertical or horizontal? And how often do you open it? To some extent it is possible that ethylene does not need removal, after all, if Axel keeps apples until June, the ethylene does not matter. There will be web sites (including .edu sites) that will say it should be removed, but I guess you do not believe everything that is on the web.

Glib, maybe it's useful to remove ethylene but it's not something that refrigerators do and would require a sophisticated system to accomplish. I have no data, just the experience of putting apples in long term refrigeration where the fridge is full of apples and the door is only infrequently opened.

I completely trust Applenut's evaluations based on the caliber of his contributions to this forum.

Years ago I read an article about a technical adviser of commercial fruit growing who as a hobby project studied storing apples in sealed containers straight in the ground- something like a buried trash can but sealed tight. As I recall, sealing off oxygen was part of what made his little system work and there was no ethylene removed.

I don't think even commercial apple storage includes the removal of ethylene, because nurseries are always warning about leaving nursery stock where apples are being stored because high levels of ethylene can kill them. However, this is just deductive- maybe you have information that contradicts my presumption.

I just wanted to know if the fridge is vertical or horizontal. If it is vertical, one opening is equivalent to one air change (the cold air falls down to the floor). That is the reason why fridges are a lot less efficient than chest freezers. But either way, you are right the ethylene is not a problem.

I'm getting a chest freezer (horizontal) without defrost. What I've used up til now is a vertical fridge with defrost. Defrosting also consumes a lot of power.

Just in case a person has a vertical refrigerator with defrost-

Is there any straightforward, reliable and easy way to disable that function?

If you have a self defrosting freezer, do not attempt to convert it. The cooling coils are in a confined space with a fan to circulate the cold air. If you do not defrost the coils they become solid with ice and all air flow ceases, whole space then warms up. With the non defrosting type the walls themselves cool from coils on the backside. When you raise the temperature above freezing the walls get wet with water, raising the humidity to close to 100%, and greatly reduce any dehydration from the fruit. Al

Thanks, Al.