Side by Side refrig for fermentation chamber

[monsteroyd]

OK I have a question for the Borg. I added a small flask with water and another small graduated cylinder within that to act as a thermowell for the temp sensor on the STC-1000. (wish I would have taken a picture.) That way I hope to get a little less cycling and measure something closer to the liquid in the LBKs.

Anyway the question for the Borg is, Now that I can accurately hold fermentation temps, what should I set my temp at? I am at 65F (18.3C) right now. Should I go cooler?

Thanks
Monty

[RickBeer]

I'm no expert at this, but I don't think your solution is right. The temp you want to measure is the wort, not the temp of another liquid in the frig. While what you're doing will accurately tell you the frig temp, it won't reflect the variation in the wort temp that occurs when fermentation kicks in, i.e. that 4 - 8 degree spike. IF the goal is to maintain say 65 degrees, the wort gets warmer and the sensor attached to the side of the LBK tells the frig to run to keep the temp close to 65.

At least that's my understanding.

[monsteroyd]

Yes I get you. I understand about the fermentation heating up the wort, but since I have 9 LBK's in there, I was hoping to kind of average it all out with the sensor. I stuck it in water to get the cycling down. Originally I had the sensor in the air, and when I opened the door, it could warm up the air slightly and then start a frig cycle. Putting the sensor in water was not to try to approximate the wort temp, but add a little heat sink to slow the heating and cooling of the sensor.

So a about a 6 deg spike during fermentation, so maybe putting the sensor temp a little lower, say 62 would still keep the wort at 70 if I have a 8 degree spike.

Monty

[RickBeer]

I would agree with your conclusion and would think that 62 would be good as the low point, depending on the variation. In other words, to maintain 62 does it cool to 60 or 61 and then turn off? If so, then you'd want the coldest temp to be like 62, I think.

Do you really need 19 gallons of beer fermenting at once?

[monsteroyd]

No the STC-1000 is pretty cool. That 62 would be the lowest point. It allows it to heat up .5C degree and then cycles on to lower it back down to 62. So that would be 16.7C as the lowest. Go up to 17.2C, then turn on the frig to get it back down to 16.7, so it would aprox cycle between 62 and 63 F.

And yes I do need 18 gallons of beer fermenting at once. Buwahaha! Because I can!

Monty

[RickBeer]

2.13 x 9 = 19.17, not 18. That's 12.5 twelve ounce bottles of beer you're short-changing yourself

[monsteroyd]

Ok got some pictures

Here's my temp sensor in water:

TempSensorsmall.jpg (204.93 KiB) Viewed 816 times

Monty

[monsteroyd]

And finally the Fermentator itself:

FermentatorSmall.jpg (179.64 KiB) Viewed 816 times

Monty

[gwcr]

What a beautiful picture!

[Brewbirds]

Great pics Monty. Are you tracking what is happening to the temps on the freezer side.

Also if you have several LBK already in the fridge that volume of already cooled liquid would make the temps pretty stable vs. cooled air so that one LBK would have a hard time rising by several degrees would it not?

I ask because I would think that 62F may be to cold for some yeast so you be then be limited in what style of beer you can ferment in the fridge. It seems likee 64 - 70 ish range would be ideal.


Can you tell I own a side by side and I'm watching you?

[monsteroyd]

Yes BB I suspected you might have one. And you are probably right on 62F. I just have the ability now to absolutely control the temps and I want to get it dialed in and forget it. Right now the freezer side varies much more than the frig side, bounces between 40 and 50, maybe 55. SO I am treating like it is air tight cool storage for brewing water and some grains I have. Not really a frig, but almost. I wouldn't put milk in it, but I will cold crash there. The cooler I keep the frig side, the more the old freezer is like a frig. I have the internal temp thing in the frig set for maximum for both freezer and frig side. I don't know if that matters, but that's how I have it set.

I did set it to 62F, but that seemed too cool, so I currently have it set to 17C (62.6F), but I think I am going to raise it to 64F (17.8C). The STC-1000 is a great little piece of equipment. Now that I have a place for 9 LBK's the pipeline is feeling better, and that freed up a bunch of space in my cabinets in the basement brew station for more ingredients, so I can clean up the 'man-cave' a bit. This has really been a fantastic upgrade to my brewing. I can't believe I waited this long. I should have just gone out and got one from Craig's list and got it over with.

I have another STC-1000 that I am going to try to use to hold a small partial mash at 152F on a hot plate. I think the little hot plate I have is 1000W which is about 8.34 amps draw I think, so the STC-1000 should work there too. It can switch 10 amps.

Monty

[monsteroyd]

I bought a dual temperature LCD thing that has a temp sensor for outside and also reads the temp of the display side as well. It also does a min/max memory thing too. So I put it into the freezer, with the 'outside' probe over in the frig side. Well, my SCT-1000 holds the frig side pretty much at 70 (69.8/70.8 min and max) But the freezer side bounces between 55 and 65 (min/max) so prolly not really good for fermenting lagers as the temp swings too much.

On another note, 62 was way to cool, I think. I am holding it right at 70 now, and when I start to get finishing gravities back like I was when I was just doing the ferments at room temp, I will feel better. Right now things aren't finishing like they were, and I don't know if it is the recipes / yeast (doing higher gravity thicker darker beers) or the temps. I was making good beer at 74F, so I am waiting to see the improvement lower temps make. Not convinced yet.

Just wanted to report back on what I am experiencing.

Monty

[Brewbirds]

See that it what keeps confusing me; if the main cooling components run through the freezer and the freezer cools the fridge side by blowing cold air via a fan then how can the freezer be jumping by 10 degree increments but the fridge side stays stable? The bummer is that those freezer temps are to high to use it for any other brewing stuff like chilling beers or storing ingredients. There are yeasts (Safale T-33?) that will be happy in that range but I doubt if they would be happy with the fluctuations of 10 degrees.

I can't figure how the temps would throw off your FGs. It seems like that might happen if it was so cold that the yeast just flocculated out early but that doesn't sound like the case.

Good luck in solving your mystery.

[monsteroyd]

Because to cool the frig side, the freezer gets to 55, then by the time the frig side needs cooling again, the freezer has warmed up to 65. Yep not good for anything. I do keep 3 one gallon jugs of water in the freezer side to try to give it some thermal mass.

As far as the fermentation utilization and final gravities, the only change has been the temps, and the recipes. So I don't know if the cooler temps are hurting the FG or my wild concoctions.

Regardless, it is still nice just to have a dedicated sealed place to put all 9 of the LBKs, the fact that the temp is so stable is just the icing on the cake.

Monty