Advice on setting up fermenting fridge

[Jimmy78]

Hi all,

Long time lurker - first time poster...! After years of extract and partial mash brewing I've decided to start collected 'stuff' to get into all grain. I've decided that if I'm going to do it properly I first need to get temperature control, so I've gone out and bought a fridge and a temp controller and started setting it up.

My questions are as follows:

1. What settings do you typically set up your controller at? I mean .5c either side of your target temp?

2. Heat belt or heat pad?

3. After fermentation is finished, do you leave it in the chamber at temp control or take it out and put it back in to cold crash?

Thanks for taking the time to read and hopefully give me some
answers!

 

[mtb]

Hey mate,

Welcome to the dark side. My $0.02 below.

1. What settings do you typically set up your controller at? I mean .5c either side of your target temp?
Depends on where you place your temperature probe. I suggest taping it to the side of the fermenter itself to get a direct reading of your beer temp. Better yet, get a hold of some insulation (a wad of tissues will suffice) and use it to insulate your probe. It'll mean you can open the fermentation fridge door and not have the influx of warm/cool air affecting the probe reading.
You can assume the temp inside your fermenter is a little warmer than the outside, due to the heat caused by fermentation, so I set mine at 17C with a 1C differential (so it turns the fridge on at 18C and off again at 17).

2. Heat belt or heat pad?
Never used a heat belt, someone else here may have used both and have better advice, but I don't think it really matters.

3. After fermentation is finished, do you leave it in the chamber at temp control or take it out and put it back in to cold crash?
Not sure what you're asking here. Once fermentation is done you can use the same fermentation fridge to cold crash your brew - simply adjust your temp controller. If you're asking whether or not to cold crash at all.. yes, definitely cold crash.

 

[Jimmy78]

Hanks for your reply! I guess with point 3 I'm asking that given fermentation is typically done after 3-5 days, I typically leave brews sit for 14 days before I keg. Given that once fermentation is finished, temp isnt that critical, do other brewers just leave it in the fermentation fridge till ready to cold crash or, take it out, sit is aside to mature and then put it back in?

 

[Zorco]

1. Agree with mtb there. If I recall correctly, the 0.5 in an STC-1000 is the deadband range plus and minus, giving you an effective 1C band. Good enough

2. Queenslander here so not much heating experience. My first thoughts are that the pad is potentially more effective and efficient.

3. With mtb again here. Setting your controller to zero or minus 1 C is the go, unless of course you're using the one fridge for two fermentation vessels. Then your plan seems fine as long as your ferment doesn't get too warm or for too long.


And definitely welcome Jimmy.

 

[mtb]

Given that once fermentation is finished, temp isnt that critical, do other brewers just leave it in the fermentation fridge till ready to cold crash or, take it out, sit is aside to mature and then put it back in?

Temp isn't quite as critical there as it is during fermentation, but if you can keep it in check, you should. A diacetyl rest is fairly common practice following a complete fermentation (if you need one - do a taste test) and you could use your temp controller to do that also, by simply setting your controller to ~21C. That assumes though, that you're in an area in Aus that is ball soup territory, and you have no trouble finding temps that high.

Canberra is shit.

 

[Rocker1986]

Hi Jimmy, welcome to the forum. My answers in red below, though probably much the same as mtb and Zorco B)

Hi all,

Long time lurker - first time poster...! After years of extract and partial mash brewing I've decided to start collected 'stuff' to get into all grain. I've decided that if I'm going to do it properly I first need to get temperature control, so I've gone out and bought a fridge and a temp controller and started setting it up.

My questions are as follows:

1. What settings do you typically set up your controller at? I mean .5c either side of your target temp? 0.3C difference in mine. I tape the probe to the side of the FV underneath packing foam, so the temp doesn't move up too quickly. Heating is rarely required where I live, so the brews just sit between target temp and 0.3C above it.

2. Heat belt or heat pad? No experience with these. I just fill up a 2 or 3 litre Erlenmeyer flask with water, boil that, then stick it in the fridge on the odd occasions I need heating in there.

3. After fermentation is finished, do you leave it in the chamber at temp control or take it out and put it back in to cold crash? I raise the temp controller up by about 3C for ales and 8C for lagers, towards the end of the fermentation and leave it up there until a few days after fermentation has finished, and then drop the temp to 0C for a cold crash. The fermenter doesn't move until it's time to keg it after the cold crash.

Thanks for taking the time to read and hopefully give me some
answers!

 

[Coldspace]

Hey mate,

All of the above,

For winter in Sydney if doing ales etc or to get temp up for d rest, I'd use a heater belt , but don't put it around the fermenter as such . You just have it sitting inside the fridge next to fermenter and un-coiled as much as possible. With a little air gap between the belt and fermenter, not direct contact.
Having the belt off the fermenter will make it heat the fridge space nice and evenly, without a hot spot on the fermenter, plus a 25 watt belt is more than enough for couple of fermenters inside a sealed up fridge.
Temp controller in thermowell or taped to side of fermenter 1/3rd up from bottom under some insulation such as packing foam or 2 old stubby coolers split. These work well.

 

[stm]

2. Don't bother with the expense of either. I brew in Sydney also, and have never used heating, only cooling. If your garage is getting too cold in winter then ferment in a dark, quiet corner in your house, where it might be 16-18C, which is actually ideal for most ale yeasts. Or, brew in your fridge at 10C with a true lager yeast.

 

[damoninja]

Seems like you're set on the cold side, so heating...

It does get cool enough in Adelaide to warrant heating, depending on where you are and where you place your fridge. Mine hangs out on my back verandah, so it sees 40+ degree heat waves in summer and the odd ~1 degree nights in winter.

I use an ITC-308, but STC more or less similar. The main difference with the ITC is I can set a different heat differential to cold, my cold is +0.5 where my heat is -0.3 which will heat to about my target +~0.5

You can use any low wattage heat source such as a belt, mat, heat lamp etc. The heat mat that I use is actually a water bed heater someone was going to throw away, I place it against the back of the fridge so it's not in direct contact with the fermenter. Have heard of guys using reptile heat lamps, that would be a good one as you could mount it to the inside of the fridge and it's not in the way.

I don't run both at the same time, if I have the heater plugged in, I don't have the fridge plugged in. The temps don't clash often, but they can and it just wastes energy.

Heating I only use a few times a year, generally not needed within the first day or so as a ferment as the yeast heats itself, beyond that as it cools I'll enable heat to keep things stable.

2x10^-2

 

[mofox1]

2. Heat belt or heat pad?

Anything cheap with a low heat output will work fine. I find heat belts are far too hot (at least the ones I've seen).

I've got a 15w reptile heat cord in one fermentation chamber, but my main fermentation fridge just has the base of an old lava lamp at the bottom.

The original 40w bulb worked well, but the latest replacement bulb is only 15w or 20w and (at least in spring/summer) seems to work fine too. Obviously you need to use the bad ol' incandescent bulbs as these are the ones that produce heat.

 

[GABBA110360]

i have temp probs any time of the year so i went the whole hog
upright freezer beefed up bottom shelf with a steel of ally 6 mm thick
a heat pad under and a thermowell down into wort to put sensor

 

[moonhead]

1. I've got 0.7 low (heating) and 1.5 high (cooling). I'm constantly revising that though. It's a balancing act to try and get it a consistent temperature and not have it constantly running and overshooting triggering the other side. 1.5 High is probably a little too high, I'm not overshooting my heating that much, so I'll probably bring that down to 0.7 as well.

2. I use a heatpad, but I don't rest my fermenter on it. I've just got it sitting up against the fridge door, so it provides a source of heat, but not a direct heat against the fermenter. Warm/cool the chamber, not the fermenter. I find this to be a little underpowered, will get to a max of about 25 degrees, when cooler outside. I'll be revisiting this in the future i think, especially for things like kettle souring.

3. I use my chamber to cold crash. Once fermentation has finished, just change the temp to like 2 degrees and leave for a couple of days. You can use these chambers for any part of the brewing process that requires temp control, so long as you can get it to the required temp (boiling would be, challenging). Certainly cold crashing, fermenting, even bottle conditioning (if you're concerned about ambient temps), I'm looking at rigging mine to work with kettle souring. Whatever you can think of that requires a constant specific temp you can use it for.

 

[droid]

Hi all,

Long time lurker - first time poster...! After years of extract and partial mash brewing I've decided to start collected 'stuff' to get into all grain. I've decided that if I'm going to do it properly I first need to get temperature control, so I've gone out and bought a fridge and a temp controller and started setting it up.

My questions are as follows:

1. What settings do you typically set up your controller at? I mean .5c either side of your target temp?

2. Heat belt or heat pad?

3. After fermentation is finished, do you leave it in the chamber at temp control or take it out and put it back in to cold crash?

Thanks for taking the time to read and hopefully give me some
answers!

1. .5deg C swing either way.
2. Heat Belt hanging in fridge - 2 years now still no probs
3. Usually after ferment I chill just by either: turning down controller or running direct through the fridge on a cold setting

tips
1. I took the inner door shelfy thing off both fridges for more space and just placed alfoil sheeting over the insulation

 

[Rocker1986]

The higher the differential is set the more potential for overshoot. That's why I set mine at 0.3C. It doesn't allow overshoot downwards except maybe 0.1C or so in the lag phase. It also keeps the temperature more stable instead of having it swinging around by potentially 2.2 degrees or whatever.

My fridge does have the capability to turn 20 odd litres of beer into a slush puppy if it's not kept in check by a temp controller too...