Which Temperature Controller To Buy?

[Supra-Jim]

Jonez, my fridge is in the garage, and i live in Melbourne. if i'm brewing ales, i need the heater to keep the temps up near 17-19 range. Also having the heater on allows the temp to stay stable, so it only ever varies by 1-2 degs, rather than dropping by say 5-6 degs overnight.

Cheers SJ

 

[Jonez]

Horses and courses Jonezy

Do what you think best suits you.

I use the tempmate on my ferment fridge and run a "heater" (upside down clay pot with a 20w globe) during winter for ales as the temp easily drops to 5-9C at night where I live in BrisVegas. You would be surprised how cold it gets over night but anyway if your houses ambient sits with the 18 to 20C range over winter I wouldn't bother.

Chappo :icon_cheers:

fair enough

 

[bhummel]

I've found an inexpensive option for precise temp control is a cheap 15-20 watt aquarium heater available at pretty much any pet shop. I picked mine up for about 15 bucks and have used it two different ways. The first way was directly in the actual fermenter which I think is the best option as long as you sanitize it and all. The other way I used it was by putting the whole fermenter in one of those round collapsible cooler type things that youre meant to fill with ice for keeping beers cold and fill it with water and then heating the water surrounding the fermenter.

 

[Brewman_]

Just to clarify one thing as I understand it.

Fridgemate can heat and cool, just adjust Function F4 to mode 1 for refridgeration and mode 2 for heating.

Tempmate comes into it's own when you want to automatically switch modes?

Now I live in Newcastle so I will talk about it only.

If you put the temp controller on a fridge / freezer for beer serving you will never need to heat.

If you are brewing lagers in a lager fridge at 10 Deg.C you will never need to heat - in Newcastle. Yes Newcastle have mornings at -1 Deg.C ocassionally but the thermal inertia of your brew and the time the ambient temps are so low, means your brew will not drop outside of the control point of your controller, so no need to heat, at least the last 3 years this has never happened to me.

If you are brewing Ales and want a temp of say 18 to 20 Deg.C then depending on where your fermenter is and the season you may need to heat or cool, but I have never had to do both with swithching between each. the fluctuating temps during the day and night and the thermal inertia of the brew meens that generally the brew sometimes needs a little cooling in summer and a little heating in winter but not swithcing between both. Again this is in Newcastle.

Perhaps in the far Southern regions and Northern regions this situation changes?

I'm not saying anyone is better than the other, but just to clarify that it depends on what you may need versus what is technically better.

Fear_n_Loath

 

[bcp]

If you can bypass the thermo on your fridge you should be able to wire it up no probs. I hadn't any electrical background at all, didn't even know what a terminal box was and even had to buy a set of wire strippers. Mine's been runnin sweet for months now.

Ok, I'm about to get a tempmate too, but have a couple of questions.

WIRING QUESTIONS
1. Has anyone wired it like this? I found this on a nz site. Nice setup with the inputs for heat & cool. Keeps your fridge and heat source intact without stripping the wiring.

2. QUESTION - Do you have to bypass the fridge thermostat? Or can you switch the thermostat all the way so that it doesn't come into play? Bypassing the thermostat is going to seriously test my electrical skills and therefore might add $$$ for a sparkie.

ENERGY EFFICIENCY
To cool efficiently - I'm not going to put insulation completely around the whole fermenter or the fridge will have to work harder to cool the wort. Right?
To heat efficiently - I already have a brewbelt for heating - not sure it's very efficient. I will need to put insulation locally around the outside of the brewbelt, so it doesn't lose lots of heat to the air in fridge - which'd be a waste of energy. I want to warm the wort, not the air.

Sensor placement: Two options: (a) Immerse sensor in the wort - which i don't particularly want to do. (B) Put the sensor on the outside of the fermenter with insulation around it to ensure the air temperature doesn't affect it.

It does mean in cooling mode the air temperature will be typically lower than ideal before the sensor picks it up through the wort.

Any better suggestions?

 

[scott_penno]

Hi bcp,

I've wired my tempmate and put it in an enclosure *exactly* like that. All the parts (other than the tempmate) can be sourced from Jaycar. Have a look at these two threads:
http://www.aussiehomebrewer.com/forum/inde...mp;#entry367165
and
http://www.aussiehomebrewer.com/forum/inde...=26500&st=0

No need to bypass the fridge thermostat. I set mine somewhere in the warmer range so that the fridge cools but doesn't overshoot and then start heating up again.

I wouldn't worry about insulating the fermenter as it will make the task of cooling and heating harder due to insulation.

As for mounting the temperature probe, I find that sandwiching the probe between the fermenter and a block of styrofoam type insulation works a treat.

YMMV.

sap.

 

[WarmBeer]

Got the tempmate wired up similarly:

Would definitely recommend putting the power switch inline, rather than having to turn the unit off at the wall. Just makes it a bit more "professional", and handy if your power supply is behind the fridge, for instance.

I did the installation into the jiffy box myself, and got a mate who's handy with the soldering iron to help me with the wiring. Took about 2 hours total, including pouring the beers

Cost of the extra bits and pieces was about $35 on top of the tempmate unit.

Oh yeah, I just stick the temp sensor to my fermenter with a big chuck of blu-tac.

 

[Brewman_]

Ok, I'm about to get a tempmate too, but have a couple of questions.

WIRING QUESTIONS
1. Has anyone wired it like this? I found this on a nz site. Nice setup with the inputs for heat & cool. Keeps your fridge and heat source intact without stripping the wiring.

2. QUESTION - Do you have to bypass the fridge thermostat? Or can you switch the thermostat all the way so that it doesn't come into play? Bypassing the thermostat is going to seriously test my electrical skills and therefore might add $$$ for a sparkie.

ENERGY EFFICIENCY
To cool efficiently - I'm not going to put insulation completely around the whole fermenter or the fridge will have to work harder to cool the wort. Right?
To heat efficiently - I already have a brewbelt for heating - not sure it's very efficient. I will need to put insulation locally around the outside of the brewbelt, so it doesn't lose lots of heat to the air in fridge - which'd be a waste of energy. I want to warm the wort, not the air.

Sensor placement: Two options: (a) Immerse sensor in the wort - which i don't particularly want to do. ( B) Put the sensor on the outside of the fermenter with insulation around it to ensure the air temperature doesn't affect it.

It does mean in cooling mode the air temperature will be typically lower than ideal before the sensor picks it up through the wort.

Any better suggestions?

Hi,
The set up looks good. But a couple of points worth considering I think.

You must be very serious about temp control to go this way, so I would suggest the placemement of the temp probe is of paramount importance. If you have both heating and cooling ready to activate, to have to make certain you have the exact wort temp, so IMHO you must submerse. Any other method may mean that and heating / cooling will be triggered when it may not be needed.

Speaking of electical efficiency, you have to be carefull that the two methods of temp control do not fight each other. So what temp differential will you set? Is that likely to be triggered? and how often? If you go too fine in your setting you will Heat then the fridge will kick in and cool, then the heater will kick in and backwards and forwards. You may then think it is doing a great job, however it may just rack up your electricity bill!!

On another point. Yes set the fridge thermo to the lowest temp absolutely. The last thing you need is a third input to your temp control. You will never want the fridge to turn off cooiling over the tempmate control. If you did then again you will have the fridge via the thermo fighting the heater belt.

All the best,

Fear_n_Loath

 

[WarmBeer]

Somebody with far much more spare time (and technology) than me looked into it:

Link here

His conclusion is that taped/blu-tac-ed to the side of the fermenter is they way to go. YMMV.

 

[Brewman_]

Warmbeer.
Mate! This is my point exactly, without telling people what to do.

What is explained in the link is a fridgmate with blue tac on the side of the fermenter. It is a COOILING only scenario and I agree with all of the findings of niggles, at first glance, but what this post is about is a COOLING & HEATING scenario.

bcp is contemplating something different, HEATING & COOLING, and I dont thing the same rules hold true. I must say I have never tested this scenario, so my comments are theoretical only. But maybe niggles has some spare time to prove?

Bye the way. I use a blob of similar stuff to blue tac on the side of my gas botlle - (in freezer) for temp control and yes it works great!

Fear_n_Loath.

 

[WarmBeer]

No probs, Fear'N.

Hey, this is teh internets, you can't expect me to read all the available information before voicing an opinion

 

[Brewman_]

Hey Warmbeer,

Your opinion is cool, and thanks for tipping me towrads that stuff from niggles, I had not seen that and it was good.

I am not saying anything is wrong, but I know I always like to be informed before I undertake something, so it's my 2c worth.

Fear_n_Loath.

 

[Jonez]

For those using a fridgemate: You would like to be aware of this:

If you haven't installed a switch to turn off your unit, but use the red power button on the side of the screen, you should be unplugging or turning the unit off at the wall when not in use.

Unless it has a hidden funtion I am not aware of, the unit re-energises itselt after a power loss/restore. It will start your fridge if still conected to it.

I was minding my own business when the spare fridge started. I had lost power 9 minutes before that, which is the delay time my unit is set to. I am not brewing anything at the moment, and the doors of the fridge are not closed either. So had I not been home, I'd have had my fridge cooling the whole house.