stoutaholic
Well-Known Member
Tell me if this is a dumb idea. It is really simple, but I haven't read of this technique before, and it seems like it would work.
I only have a single-stage temperature controller - a RANCO ETC-111000. But when I want to ferment ales, sometimes the ambient temperature of my house varies around the setpoint that I want to maintain. If I had a two-stage controller, I could put a heating pad around the fermenter and put the fermenter in the fridge, and then hook both up to the two-stage controller. However, I was thinking, why not just hook the heating pad up to my single-stage RANCO and then set the refrigerator temperature to about 10 degrees below my desired fermentation temperature? The refrigerator, using its OWN thermostat, will then ensure that the fermentation temperature never exceeds the setpoint, and the RANCO, together with the heating pad, will ensure that the fermentation temperature never drops below the setpoint (or, at least, not for very long). An added advantage of this approach is that the refrigerator will not have to cycle on and off as frequently - it can operate on a pretty lenient differential, thereby saving wear and tear on the compressor.
I only have a single-stage temperature controller - a RANCO ETC-111000. But when I want to ferment ales, sometimes the ambient temperature of my house varies around the setpoint that I want to maintain. If I had a two-stage controller, I could put a heating pad around the fermenter and put the fermenter in the fridge, and then hook both up to the two-stage controller. However, I was thinking, why not just hook the heating pad up to my single-stage RANCO and then set the refrigerator temperature to about 10 degrees below my desired fermentation temperature? The refrigerator, using its OWN thermostat, will then ensure that the fermentation temperature never exceeds the setpoint, and the RANCO, together with the heating pad, will ensure that the fermentation temperature never drops below the setpoint (or, at least, not for very long). An added advantage of this approach is that the refrigerator will not have to cycle on and off as frequently - it can operate on a pretty lenient differential, thereby saving wear and tear on the compressor.