It’s the middle of winter, and it’s very cold outside. And yet, inside my house, my wine cellar cooling unit still turns itself on, because of course my wine cellar is in a heated basement. So how can I take advantage of the cold outside? How can I bring the outside cold inside?
I’ve come up with a simple solution: I take empty screw top wine bottles, and half fill them with water. Then I put the bottles outside, in the cold. On a very cold day, after a few hours, they freeze.
I then put the bottles, filled with ice, in my wine cellar. As the bottles warm up to room temperature, the cold is transferred to the wine cellar, lowering the wine cellar temperature, at no cost to me. Of course this only works on very cold days, but it’s free cold!
Here’s a caution: don’t fill the wine bottles up so they are full. When the water freezes it expands, and it will burst. I find that a half filled bottle is about right.
Also, don’t put the bottles in a slot next to your best wine. I don’t want a block of ice immediately beside a bottle of wine. I put my frozen bottles on a rack in an empty section of the wine cellar.
I also have a few bottles that I rotate. Put three frozen bottles in the cellar, and three bottles full of water outside. When the outside bottles freeze, and the bottles inside the cellar melt, switch them for free cooling on cold days.