Vintec Promotion - Wineador

[Luca]

Hi FoH!

I noticed recently that Vintec are offering a promotion on select models. I am considering purchasing this model - Vintec V110SGES3 121 Bottles Wine Storage Cabinet.

Has anyone used this model or a similar model as a wineador? I like that the shelves are adjustable and if they are similar slide-in shelves like my current Vintec...it should be relatively easy to construct some nice thick Spanish Cedar shelving for it. Also - what upgrades would I need to consider? I am assuming I will need to invest in some fans and a humidification system for it too.

This Vintec (like all Vintec Wine fridges) is Gas operated (not thermoelectric). Not sure if that makes much of a difference but I am keen to hear everyones thoughts.

Any thoughts or feedback is most appreciated as I am really trying to ramp up from my current 100 count humidor which is already overflowing with cigars (I am using sistema containers now too!).

Thanks guys,

Luca

P.S: Technical Specs can be viewed here.

[btort910]

I thought compressor (as opposed to thermoelectric) fridges were problematic because they pulled humidity from the units?

[PigFish]

42 minutes ago, btort910 said:

I thought compressor (as opposed to thermoelectric) fridges were problematic because they pulled humidity from the units?

I disprove this time and time again on this site and on my YouBoob channel, CigarClimatology.

This was just pulled (data log) from my GEN13 project on the first of the month. When you look at it, you should understand that I don't condone cigar storage, a regular diet of the temperatures that I use to prove a product.

Isla Pigfish has been in a bit of a heatwave, and the shop, where I store quite a few cigars in different projects, had been over 90F for as many as 5 days straight.

This is a data log pulled from a project.

You would be lucky to find a product with a TE cooler that can overcome an 8F ambient and not run constantly. Constantly means endless and irreversible dehydration (during times of cycle) and failure of the product as a humidor.

You will note that this humidor is not only beating near 100F temps while set at 70F, the average cooling cycle is greater than 10 minutes, and the dehydration is limited and low duration. The average lands at or near the set point of 60rH.

Again, I don't recommend that anyone try this. If the humidor fails you are in for cigars that get the shock treatment. Even while I am pulling loggers and changing things in the humidor, the temps can climb dramatically in the short time that I have the humidor turned off. It is not wise...

But lets say you take a vacation and while you are gone your hometown gets a heat wave and the house warms to 85F because you did not leave the AC on just in case. Your cigars... Well, they never will know that it happened!

This is where the bar height is set for those that build a compact refrigerated humidor. Not that less won't do you... We all compromise. Yet this is where the bar is set today... and no one that I know of comes close!

TE coolers... No way baby!

Cheers! -Piggy

Here is an old vid of humidor moving from low to higher temps (precision humidors).

Older video on TE vers. Compressor cooler.

Cheers! -Piggy

[Luca]

Thanks @PigFish! I thought TE was better. Thank you for explaining to me how TE fridges can badly dehydrate the unit and your cigars. I am feeling better about purchasing this Vintec.

[PigFish]

Bear in mind mate that engineering and controls will play a big part in your success. A compressor cooler alone is just as big a failure (MHO) without a properly engineered design.

If you went to my YouBoob site, you can see some build videos of one of my kits. It is not the kit that makes it significant, it is the amount of engineering and parts required to make a commercially available wine cooler into a 'proper' humidor.  Proper, of course is debatable. Many on this site will claim success from a TE cooler and a few pounds of beads, along with a couple of wood shelves. In my build videos, you will see what is necessary to obtain my success. One can emulate some aspects of my success by emulating aspects of the theory represented and building it into their own projects.

Success is in the eye of the beholder. Anecdotal success is a matter of opinion. Proven success is in the record of many years of data logging. Pick your poison.

Don't buy a cooler based on my opinion. I am highly biased to a strictly engineered and empirically tested system. Any unmodified wine cooler is likely a failure in my eyes.

All the parts derived to complete one of my kits are necessary to my kit's success. The success of the project then is related to how the parts interact. The wine cooler itself is only the compressor, the enclosure and the door. I engineer everything else in it. A wine cooler alone is not a humidor in any way, shape or form, compressor, TE or otherwise! Please keep that in mind before you buy one.

If you cannot engineer it, nor grasp the theory, my suggestion is that you stick with an ice chest. That is brutal but my honest opinion.

Cheers! -Piggy

[Fuzz]

Carly would prefer that you fill the Vintec with wine.

[Luca]

22 minutes ago, Fuzz said:

Carly would prefer that you fill the Vintec with wine.

The good thing is that if the wineador doesn't work for me we can keep wine in it!