Cold Crashing For A n00b

Almighty Beer Gods:

I scored a wicked upright whirlpool freezer from a neighbor who was getting rid of it because it needed a recharge and wouldn't deep freeze.

My question to you is:

The stable temp on the lowest setting possible (somewhere between OFF and 1) is around 26-28F degrees. Is this going to be too cold to throw in 5 gallons of homebrew in a 6.5 gallon glass carboy? Im not wanting to freeze the beer, break my carboy, or drop the seventy bucks on a regulator right now. Last night I threw a Heineken in there when I went to bed and it was not frozen when I woke up this morning. Poured the same beer into a plastic cup and floated my thermometer in it for about 10 hours during the day today. Rushed home and checked the temp and it was at about 27F.

Whaddya think fellas?

27 degrees is pushing the limit a little bit. You may get away with it you may not, it's just risky.
I am just thinking out loud here, but maybe a cheap stopgap to a proper temp regulator might be a high current capable timer. The kind you set to turn say the coffee pot on in the moring. You could set it to run the freezer say 1 or 2 hours on 5 or 6 hours off. Monitor the temp and see where this gets you on average, and adjust the on and off cycles as needed. The timer would have to be able to handle the current draw of the freezer though.

that's a pretty good idea. does anyone have any experience with cold crashing at a temp that is this low?

does anyone have any experience on changing a freezer thermostat to a fridge thermostat? I've seen this mentioned briefly, but being completely uneducated to the ways of refrigeration I'm not sure the complexities involved in this or if it is even an option.

I don't think you really gain anything. Short of some kind of lager yeast (IDK), they will all quit working somewhere around 40, and that is what you need. They go to sleep and fall to the bottom.

Just get a controller. If you spend the extra couple of bucks on a dual zone one, you'll thank me later when you want to keep it at 60 and it's getting too cold at night.

Also since the Freezer is trying to get to 0° or lower the unit is going to run 24-7. It will cost you more in the long run if you dont buy a controller for it

Spend minimal bucks on a temp controller. I use these for my freezers and they work perfectly for all my fermentations. I also use the stopper thermowell and stick the temp probe in to measure the beer temp, not just the temp inside the freezer. I bet you could find it cheaper than $80 if you troll ebay or amazon or something. Personally, I think $80 is cheap for the ability to control to any temp I want.

http://www.northernbrewer.com/pics/fullsize/digital-temp-controller.jpg


Edit: MY 100th post! I'm no longer an UBER NOOB! Graduating to REGULAR NOOB!

You can buy one of these Honeywell T675A 1565 Remote Bulb Temp. Controllor NOS - eBay (item 140318248018 end time Jul-01-09 12:54:16 PDT)

offer less than the $34.50 . This gives you the flexibility to move it to another freezer if it craps out on you. You could also set it up to heat or cool pretty inexpensively by using a switch and some common electrical parts. I made one with the help of a thread on HBT https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f51/mini-kegorator-100815/ and one of the posters was kind enough to email me a schematic for wiring, which helped me confirm what I was going to do.

Why do you think temperature control has to cost $70? Sure for the nice digital units, $70 sounds about right. Why not an analog model?

purchased a johnson controls a19 from ebay for $29 shipped. pretty straight price, couldn't find one cheaper. I'm thinking about creating a photo tutorial on the wiring the thing up, so that i can feel like i'm actually contributing.

thanks dudes:rockin: