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STC brew fridge


Lab Cat

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Hi all

Been looking out for a cheap fridge for ages. Guy local is selling a clean looking fridge already set up with a fermenter, inside shelf built for it and an STC1000. The temp regulator is an external PID arrangement. That’s powered by 240v and has a 240v point for cooling (the actual fridge) and another for heating. This is already to brew with.

I'm only familiar with the Inkbirds, but a quick google show lots of brewers using STCs, as they seem to need wiring up. Are there any things I should be asking?

He's mentions 240v and we're 230 here, but the inkbirds run off 240v as well.Just unsure about the electricity situation here...

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5 hours ago, Otto Von Blotto said:

I always thought everywhere in Australia was 240.

We used to be all 240 in Aus, then all the other states bar QLD went to 230, and I think we did last year. One the engineers tried to explain why but it obviously wasn’t that interesting cause I can’t remember what it was.

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Finally got one. The saga endeth. Asked the stores guys at work. We use fridges in the lab all the time and they get replaced regularly. They were glad for me to take one off them. And It's cost me just a couple of bottles...

Had 6 to choose from and only one would fit the fermenter in. Steps aren't are a problem, as you just shove one of the shelves in, and prop it on there, but all but one had a freezer section getting in the way.

And WA / QLD is still 240v. Why we stayed and everyone changed to 230, i don't know, but at least I know which inkbird to get as they sell both.

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Good stuff. Yeah, I didn't think I'd heard anything about us changing to 230 volts. If the reason for it is safety it wouldn't make a difference anyway, it's the current that does the damage. People still get electrocuted in countries on 110/120 volts. 

I would imagine a 240 volt rated device would still work on 230 anyway. I have a few different things here that are rated 220-240 rather than just one voltage and they all work fine.

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Voltage Converters

Mains voltage in Australia is 230V 50Hz. Travellers from most nations in Asia, Africa and Europe should have appliances that work on the same mains voltage as Australia - therefore you will not need a voltage converter. Notable exceptions to this are Japan, USA and Canada which uses 100/120V 50/60Hz.

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Hi All

Going to give my fridge a first run soon when the controller arrives. I'm going to be playing safe to begin with and go with a pale, probably with Nottingham yeast or similar if they don't have any.

What's the ideal temperature for a pale with good ale yeast? I ask becasue coopers recipes do vary a bit for recommending fermenting temp

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Temp control is literally about the yeast and control over the fermentation qualities of that. Id suggest 18-19c for that yeast for a clean profile. Id also suggest after 4-5 days from pitch ramping up the temp a couple of degrees to help the yeast to their thang.

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cheers. I ended up getting US04, my LBS tends to run out of Nottingham. Still 18deg?

So reading the Inkbird's 'unique' instructions, you set your temp, then a cooling and heating differential, to keep the fridge operating temp within certain limits. The inkbird has a socket for heating and cooling - I'm assuming this is there depending on whether you're using a heating OR cooling device, and we're only using the cooling socket?

Also, do you need to set the fridge dials to anything in particular to enable it to work efficiently with the controller - most with have a hi or low or 1-7 arrangement.

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I'd go 20 with S-04. 

Yes, if nothing is plugged into the heating socket nothing happens if it drops below the set temp to the point where heating would kick in. I use my stc the same way, but the brew hardly ever drops that far anyway.

I just have the fridge set to its coldest setting. At fermentation temp it makes no difference but when cold crashing it gets it down nicely.

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2 hours ago, Otto Von Blotto said:

I'd go 20 with S-04. 

I just have the fridge set to its coldest setting. At fermentation temp it makes no difference but when cold crashing it gets it down nicely.

Thanks. I don't understand that though. If it's set at its coldest, doesn't that make the fridge and controller work harder? A fridge on coldest setting is probably running about 4-5 degrees - or should be.

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No, because the controller cuts the power off when it reaches the set temperature, so the fridge is completely off until the brew temp rises to the point where the controller turns the power back on. That's how it maintains ferment temp. If it just sat on 4 degrees the whole time it'd be useless.

My fridge goes below zero on its coldest setting, it's a beast. Found that out when I made a beer slushie a while back cold crashing without the temp controller. But they're all different. 

 

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1 hour ago, Otto Von Blotto said:

No, because the controller cuts the power off when it reaches the set temperature, so the fridge is completely off until the brew temp rises to the point where the controller turns the power back on. That's how it maintains ferment temp. If it just sat on 4 degrees the whole time it'd be useless.

That's not what I was saying. 4-5 is the appropriate temp for any fridge to work at in normal food stage use. Some go cooler, some can go warmer, depending on how well they run and what setting you put it on. The query was purely about why the coldest setting (which will be overridden anyway) is more efficient.

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And I said it makes no difference at fermentation temp. It's only on for a few minutes at a time. The fridge thermostat itself is not overridden by the controller because it can't be, all the controller does is turn the power on and off; the fridge doesn't run long enough to cool it down to 4 degrees or wherever unless you're dropping a batch down to cold crash so its setting is irrelevant at fermentation temp.

Similarly, if you set the controller to zero and the fridge can only go to 2, then it will stop dropping at 2 and run as if the controller wasn't there at all. 

It's just easier to leave it on one setting instead of changing it. The warmest setting on my fridge is 5 degrees, coldest somewhere below zero. I don't like cold crashing "warm" so I leave the fridge on its coldest setting always. 

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Cheers, that's what I was trying to understand. So the Inkbird looks simple. Just trying it out so I know what i'm doing before I put a brew in.

I set to 20 with a diff heat/cool of .5. I'm getting big swings in temp after the heating and cooling kicks in. When it started cooling it hit 19.5 then cooling turned off, but the temp kept dropping, settled on 18, then slowly crept up over 15 minutes. Never made it back to 20 til I opened the door and the hot garage warmed it quick, then same story when the compressor kicked in to cool it again.

Is this just because it's measuring the ambient temp in the fridge with nothing in it? I plan on taping the probe to the fermenter to ensure the probe is working to the wort temp and not the surrounds.

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Yes, it will swing like that if it's just measuring the ambient. You'll find when it's taped to the fermenter that it won't overshoot like that, if at all.

I sometimes notice it drops like 0.1-0.2 under before fermentation starts but that's as far as it ever gets below the set temperature. Once fermentation begins it doesn't overshoot at all due to the heat created by the yeast.

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Exactly. I've been taking the probe off to cold crash the beer, and changing the difference to 2 degrees. It definitely changes quicker, as would be expected. The fridge is now outside and struggles to get the beer itself down to zero during the hotter months, but has no trouble getting itself down there. Once the weather cools down I'll just leave the probe in place though. 

The other reason for measuring the brew temp is fairly obvious, it is what we're controlling. The ambient temperature will differ depending on what stage the fermentation is at; for an 18°C fermentation the ambient might be sitting at 15 during the most active part, but will equalise with the beer as the fermentation slows down. This is obviously done automatically when measuring the brew temp but if you were measuring the ambient you'd have to do it manually to prevent temp drop off and guess when to change it. That's a pain in my mind.

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