New Fermentation Chamber

[jarnock]

Ladies and Gentlemen,

I just got a new fermentation chamber. It is a 7 cubic feet freezer from Lowe's. Anyways, I was hoping you could pass on some tips to me. Like what should I set my thermometer to - Right now its at 66, but there is a 4 degree drop before it kicks in to cool off. So I set it up last night and this morning its at 62.

Also, what temps do you usually set yours to? I read all the time about ambient temp and temp inside the bucket is between 5-10 degrees off. I.E. if your ambient air temp is 66, you are really fermenting at 71 or even as high as 76.

 

[bd2xu]

Tape the probe of your controller to the side of the fermenter then fold up a small towel, washcloth, or some bubble wrap and tape it over the probe. You want no air getting to the probe and it to be insulated. This way it will closely measure the temp inside the fermenter and set your controller to whatever temp you want to ferment at which depends on the yeast and style of beer. You will see during fermentation that the air temp in the freezer will be several degrees cooler than what the probe is measuring. Works great.

 

[Maplehead74]

You fermentation depends on the yeast type and what character you want to get out of it. For example Wyeast American Ale II has a citrus character at low temps and a fruit character at the higher end .
Also within the fermentation you will most likely do some raising and lowering of temps for Diacetyl rest and / or cold crashing . Other times you may want to raise the temperature to restart yeast . So, the setting of a temperature is not really a one size fits all and shouldn't be , better control is why you spent all that money at lowes.

Monitoring the fermentation should be exactly that . You don't need to know what temp the air in the freezer is , you need to know the temp. of your brew. So the way you do that is to place the probe from your temperature control in a thermocouple that is physically in the brew, or simply place it on the carboy insulate it and tape it on . I use a patch of doubled over bubble wrap and packing tape mid way on the carboy works great !!

Have fun with your new toy!

 

[jarnock]

You fermentation depends on the yeast type and what character you want to get out of it. For example Wyeast American Ale II has a citrus character at low temps and a fruit character at the higher end .
Also within the fermentation you will most likely do some raising and lowering of temps for Diacetyl rest and / or cold crashing . Other times you may want to raise the temperature to restart yeast . So, the setting of a temperature is not really a one size fits all and shouldn't be , better control is why you spent all that money at lowes.

Monitoring the fermentation should be exactly that . You don't need to know what temp the air in the freezer is , you need to know the temp. of your brew. So the way you do that is to place the probe from your temperature control in a thermocouple that is physically in the brew, or simply place it on the carboy insulate it and tape it on . I use a patch of doubled over bubble wrap and packing tape mid way on the carboy works great !!

Have fun with your new toy!

Thank you for the response! I have the plastic thermometers on my brew buckets, should I just monitor for that? I really can't wait to try this bad boy out. Thank you for the responses!

 

[Patirck]

You can also get a rubber stopper with a stainless temperature probe that dips into the beer. The stopper as the probe on one side the a hole for an airlock next to it. You place the probe in this and it turns the freezer off and on depending on the temp of the beer instead of the side of the bucket or the ambient air.

I had this set up until recently, when changed to a two stage temp controller and the new probe is too thick to fit in the stainless tube. I am back to taping the probe to the side of the bucket. I have a the old probe in the beer and the new probe taped to the side of the bucket. They are never more than 1 degree different.

 

[el_caro]

What sort of temperature controller do you have controlling the freezer ?

 

[BigFloyd]

What sort of temperature controller do you have controlling the freezer ?

I have the same question.

To the thread starter - if you haven't yet set up that chest freezer with a temp controller, please do yourself a favor and do just that. You've already got the big (and most expensive) item needed.......the freezer. You can pick an STC-1000 digital dual temp controller up from Amazon for about $20.

It's very straightforward and works great (I use three). You wire it into a standard 2-plug outlet that you mount in some kind of project box (either homemade or bought at Radio Shack). One (cool) outlet is for the freezer/fridge. Into the other (warm) outlet, you plug some kind of small heater and then put that heater inside the freezer.

Set the target temp (in Celsius) on the STC-1000. Set the tolerance (default is +/-0.5*C). When the temp (as read by the sensor) climbs 0.5*C above the target, it powers up the cool outlet and keeps it energized until the temp drops to the target and then turns it off. Likewise with the warm outlet if it gets 0.5*C too cool. You tape the sensor on the side of the fermenter and place some kind of insulation like bubble wrap over top of it so that it reads the bucket temp and not the air.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f51/ebay-fish-tank-controller-build-using-wal-mart-parts-261506/


https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f51/ebay-aquarium-temp-controller-build-163849/



http://brewstands.com/fermentation-heater.html