Butter Fridge
OK so I’m a butter snob. It’s all a result of traveling in Europe where, let’s face it, the butter is better. This means I spend an extra $3 at the store and get the extra-yummy butter to cook, toast, and sautée with. We’re not talking crazy bourgeois here… you can find it in many slightly-fancy food stores. Brands: Kerrygold, Baratte, Beurre d’Isigny.
Problem is that in the summer, butter’s too soft. In the fridge, butter’s too firm. There’s something nice about butter that’s just the right temperature. You can put the knife in, grab a dollup, and spread around the goodness wherever you want. A wonderful feeling. But only during 2 months of the year will a stick of butter on the counter be reasonably spreadable. Enter: the butter fridge. Total cost: $55
The butter fridge is a plug-in mini fridge with an added temperature control set to 19°C / 66°F.
So the first thing to do is find an inexpensive small fridge that you can plug in, but also works at 12v. This is a clever way to presume that the internal workings are 12v — important since that’s how we’re going to control the temperature. I used this one, but there are numerous similar designs.
Problem is that left to its own devices, the fridge gets pretty chilly inside. We want our butter to be the perfect temperature, so you need to add a 12v temperature control board. These are all over eBay.
(NOTE: I’m going to come back and add pics to the installation steps below ASAP….)
Now its just a matter of installing the control board in the back of the fridge. Turns out there’s plenty of room back there. Find the 12v from the power transformer coming onto the fridge’s control board, and connect it to the temperature module. Then drill a little hole for the sensor so it rests inside the fridge compartment — secure with a bit of silicone glue.
Now set the on/off switch of the module so it interrupts power to the fridge’s control board and voila. You have a fridge small enough for a few butter packages that will always be at the perfect temperature.
UPDATE: It turns out the chilling module of this fridge has a max of about 20k cycles. It will fail after a few years, but that’s not a hard replacement. You only need a new module ($6) and a bit of thermal grease. The module is sandwiched under the heat sync and 4 screws let you pop the dead one out and replace the new one.
