Brewing Fridges

[Payno]

Hi Guys

Does anyone know where to get a STC100 already wired up in Melbourne? - I have looked on kegking website and it says out of stock (been that way for a while) - Ive asked the guy at my local brew store to get one for me but I think he orders them from kegking aswell so I've got a feeling when I go there tomorrow morning he will say he hasn't got any.

I don't care where I get it or what model it is - just prefer one pre-wired as I am not confident of doing that myself, and would prefer one that I can plug the heater and fridge into given the bloody weather here in Melbourne!

Current brew has gone a bit sour and ive got a feeling its due to the changing temp so keen to get this done - got a fridge in the garage not being used so just need the temp controller and Im ready to go.

I have to say some of the set-ups you guys have got look very technical! Im hoping that's just your passion and ability being demonstrated and fans and stuff are not necessary. I wouldn't have a clue how to set up all that gear! Just want something simple but effective - happy tp pay someone to do it if you think that's the best way to get it done. Summer is coming (apparently..) so will be increasingly hard to keep the temp down once the house heats up.

thanks for any advice

Cheers

Chris

[Quadricorn]

I think you will find everyone here bought the parts and got an electrician to wire them up. Do you have a sparky mate?

[Otto Von Blotto]

Thanks for your tips kelsey. Very helpful.

 

At this time of year i risk exposing my bottles to 30 degree temps. I hope if i tape the probe to the fv and set the controller at 20 this will be a good compromise for both the brew and conditioning bottles.

 

That should work pretty well mate. 20 isn't too high to ferment at' date=' and should keep the bottles at a warm enough temp to be able to carbonate them. [img']smile[/img]

[Otto Von Blotto]

I think you will find everyone here bought the parts and got an electrician to wire them up. Do you have a sparky mate?

 

That's the usual way of doing it if you don't buy the pre-wired ones yeah. Although mine was wired at home with the help of Dad.

[Quadricorn]

Double post.

[Payno]

Hiya fellow brewers

so got my fridge all set up and put my first brews in there - large FV on the bottom and small one at the top ( I'd attach a pic - but don't know how, where's the attach tab?)

Anyways ....probe is attached to bottom FV but as it's a full size fridge ( no freezer) the element or whatever you call it that refrigerates it is at the top. While the bottom is sitting at 18c the top FV dips to 14-16c when the fridge switches on - is that too cold? then goes back to 18c

I anticipated some small difference but wondering if this is too much - should I not attach probe to the FV and just register the ambient temp of fridge?

Make more sense if I could work out how to attach a pic!!

[Otto Von Blotto]

Upload it to photobucket or imgur or whatever then copy the direct link to it, click the picture button in the reply screen and paste the link, that should work.

[Payno]

[http://s1078.photobucket.com/user/payno2/media/image.jpg1_zps40jt0rse.jpg.html/html]

[Payno]

http://s1078.photobucket.com/user/payno2/media/image.jpg1_zps40jt0rse.jpg.html

[Otto Von Blotto]

The thermo strip may be getting confused by the ambient air as well. The beer won't drop by that far just by the fridge switching on to bring the big batch down to 18, although I don't know how big a temp difference you've got the controller set to.

[Payno]

The thermo strip may be getting confused by the ambient air as well. The beer won't drop by that far just by the fridge switching on to bring the big batch down to 18' date=' although I don't know how big a temp difference you've got the controller set to. [/quote']

 

 

Hi Kelsey - can you see the pic? doesn't appear to me

anyway - I just set the temp controller to 18 - it fluctuates a bit, don't know any advance settings than that, if it does drop below 18 temporarily will that have much effect on the brew mate?

cheers

chris

[Otto Von Blotto]

Yeah, I copied the link and opened it in a new tab.

 

What type of temp controller do you have? Most of them have a setting on them where you can control how far above or below your set temperature it goes before the unit kicks in either the fridge or a heating device to bring it back to that temp. For example, I have mine set to 0.3C, so if it's fermenting at 18, once it rises to 18.3 the fridge turns on, when it drops back to 18, the fridge turns off, and so on and so forth... (I have no need for heating here).

[Payno]

Thanks mate - I'll read the instructions again and see if I can get that happening, it's the standard stc1000 from keg king so assume it has that function

cheers

chris

[Otto Von Blotto]

As far as I know it does have that setting. I don't have a KK one so I don't know exactly how to program it, but I do have an STC-1000 from eBay which definitely has it.

[dpack]

I got a keg king one two days ago. What a luxury. Didn't realise it was a stc1000 although has the same features.

 

Yes the first advanced setting i think e3 is temp hysterisis (spelling?) Allows you to set the deviation from set point. I have mine set at .5 of a degree. Set point is 19.5 so fridge starts cooling at 20 and cuts out at 19.5. Early days but hoping this will allow me to bottle condition in the top half of the fridge in front of cooling plate above 18 degress. I have a second temp probe with the bottles to test this out. I had it set at 19 degres but the top bottles cooled to 17.5 degrees so i seem to have a 1.5 degree difference between top and the wort. This would probably increase when the wort was active during first 4 days of fermentation.

 

Might be better off for my conditioning bottles to be exposed to 30 degrees rather than 17 in the fridge? I'll keep testing but will be a shame to have low carbonated beer as a result.

 

How come coopers suggest a temp of 21 degrees for fermentation but consensus appears to be 18 degrees is the go? If i set the set point to 21 im sure the conditioning bottles would always stay above 18 degrees.

 

Trying to work out the best compromise between brew and bottle conditioning temps in the fridge.

 

Dave

[Otto Von Blotto]

Ferment temperatures vary depending on what you want out of the beer, and/or the yeast used/style of beer. 18C for ales is often recommended because it results in a clean fermentation with minimal esters (if any) that allows the hops and malt to shine. Particularly useful in American pale and IPA styles. If you were doing an English ale you could ferment higher around 21-22 to get a little more of the yeast influence that these beers get part of their flavour from.

 

I don't think 17C will result in the bottles not carbonating. It might just take a tad longer. The temperature instructions on the Coopers kits are aimed more at newbies who don't have all this fancy temp control set up - it's easier for them to maintain low 20s in most cases. In saying that, you probably wouldn't notice a hell of a difference fermenting between 19.5-20 or 20.5-21. It's consistent and controlled. You run in to issues more when the temps fluctuate all over the place.

[headmaster]

Probably has been mentioned before in this thread, but adding a 12V computer fan is an easy thing and it fixes most of the temperature gradient issues in a fridge or freezer.

 

If you stick a probe in any fridge or freezer, you will often see a big difference. This is why certain foods are supposed to be stored in different areas, for eg cheese that ages best at 12c is up high in the door away from the cooling evaporator. Salad veggies in the ‘crisper’.

 

I’ve measured -5 at the top of a freezer, and -18 at the bottom, so usually cooler at the bottom but can be very cool if smaller stuff like bottles being conditioned are placed under or next to the evaporator or the cool air outlet from a more modern style one.

 

This is why I run the 12V fan, for both heating and cooling in my fermenting fridges. All scavenged from old computers dumped in street clean-ups, and powered by old 12v plug packs, easy and safe job to connect them up as a non-lethal voltage of course.

 

[Payno]

Thanks Guys

yes Id seen pics of people using the computer fans - was hoping to avoid that.

if I calm down and stop brewing two brews at once and just do one at a time - (which would make sense as Im never going to get through the amount of beer Im brewing!) then I don't think it will be so much of an issue

cheers

chris

[dpack]

My fridge is cycling on and off a lot and only running for very short periods. I have the cooling delay set at 7 mins. Its turning on after 7 minutes but only for 30 seconds or so.

 

The temperature display also has never displayed a steady reading. It cycles through about half a degree constantly. I have the variation from set point set at half a degree.

 

It is maintaining an excellent consistent temperature and the fridge feels fine but is this bad for the fridge? The day had just about cooled to the set point so it made sense that it would only run for a short period.

[Quadricorn]

Seems a little odd. Do you have the probe strapped to your fermenter and insulated?

 

What temp does the Kk read before and after its 30 second run?

[dpack]

Yes straped to and insulated.

 

The display doesn't show a steady reading. It jumps around. It will hit 20 degrees fridge turns on then the diplay keeps jumping around and 30 seconds later 19.5 is displayed and the fridge turns off. 30 seconds later it displays 20 degrees and it goes into the seven minute cooling delay and the cycle repeat.

 

The display is never steady moves around about .5 of a degree.

[Otto Von Blotto]

Sounds like something's up with the temp controller. There's no way in the world it would only take 30 seconds to heat and cool 20 odd litres of beer by 0.5C. Mine takes about 10 minutes on average to heat up 0.3C after the fridge turns off and probably about 2-3 mins to bring it back down again. When fermentation dies down it takes longer to warm up, so the fridge cycles on/off even less.

 

Even when I have the probe dangling in the fridge (when crashing yeast starters) it isn't that quick to change temperature.

[dpack]

Yeah don't know. Called keg king and its working fine.

 

I'm at day ten on my brew so it wouldn't be generating any heat i guess. Ive got the delay at seven minutes and it's maintaining the temp by running for less than a minute after every seven. I've just adjusted the delay to ten minutes.

 

We'll see.

 

Edit - maybe i didn't insulate the probe good enough. I'll try harder with the next brew.

[Payno]

mines a bit the same dpack, although it doesn't turn the fridge on but the temp reading is constantly bouncing around between 18.3-18.6 it's weird

rarely stays constant for more than a second or two

I hadn't been that worried as the temp strips on the FVs indicate a constant temp - I've attached the probe to the top FV closer to the cooling element - the strip on the FV shows between 16-18 so might reset the temp controller to 18.5 ans see what that does

[Otto Von Blotto]

That's the whole point though, it shouldn't be jumping around like a yo yo. It should stay constant, and rise and fall slowly as the beer warms up and is then cooled again by the fridge kicking in.