Refrigeration may be better?

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WBC

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I just had to write about my experience with teaching the importance of fermenting at the right temperature. A friend of mine has been berwing for about a year and we share beer and ideas all the time. He has had problems with off flavors many times and does not have enough room for refrigerating all his beers so I said "I want to prove to you that refrigeration does improve the chances that the brew will be better so I will offer to let you use my temperature controlled fridge and you can see for yourself that it does make a difference." He said "OK, I will brew the same way I always do and you're on". We put his Sanke Keg in the fridge full of beer and let it ferment for 14 days @ 66F and then keged it. We then put the kegs back in the fridge and conditioned 2 weeks and then put co2 on them for 7 days. We just tried the beer and it is wonderful and he is so impressed he is buying a freezer and Ranco digital controller. It took me many months to convince him to let me do this and so I think he just did not want me to succeed in finding that refrigeration was necessary. You guys that will not spend money should let your friends that do have refrigeration put your beer in their cooler and see what I am talking about. You could be missing some very good beer!
 
Freezer and Ranco controllers :)

I think most of the problems I had with brewing came from my lack of control with fermentation temperatures. I would get these little off-flavors in my beers that my friend would never get in his, thanks to his air conditioned house never getting warmer than 75 or so.

I put a water bottle half full into my chest freezer and set the temperature on my Ranco to 48 degrees. Tomorow morning I will open it up and take a temperature reading. If it's +/- 3 degrees from 48 I will be so happy.
 
I'm a pretty green noob at this brewing thing...only been at it for 6 months so far. However, I've impressed the hell out of some beer snobs at work with my brew. I can only attribute that to Edwort and Biermunchers recipes, all grain brewing, and a temp controlled freezer. I've received accolades...and I don't even know what the f$ck I'm doing yet!
 
By the way, I set my Ranco to 48, and the freezer turned off right when it hit 48, but the temperature is still dropping. I'm at 43 right now and it hasn't started rising yet.

I have the diff set at +/- 3 degrees. Is there any way I can get this range tighter? Should I set the temperature higher and just let it swing normally like this? When I ferment my ales, I'll probably set it at 68 with a 3 diff. If it swings down to 63 on the low side, but never gets higher than 71, will this be ok?
 
By the way, I set my Ranco to 48, and the freezer turned off right when it hit 48, but the temperature is still dropping. I'm at 43 right now and it hasn't started rising yet.

I have the diff set at +/- 3 degrees. Is there any way I can get this range tighter? Should I set the temperature higher and just let it swing normally like this? When I ferment my ales, I'll probably set it at 68 with a 3 diff. If it swings down to 63 on the low side, but never gets higher than 71, will this be ok?

Depends on the yeast strand. I usually set mine to 65 and let it go. Ill check the temperature of the beer from time to time and adjust my set point accordingly. A 6 degree swing in air temperature isnt going to affect the beer too much. I havent had a problem at least.

You dont want to set your hysterieses too tight cause then you will short cycle your compressor, which will cause premature wear.

When the yeast starts working the temperature of the wort will rise. So it is like hitting a moving target.

The only way to achieve super tight tolerances that I can think of is using a glycol chilled jacketed conical fermenter.
 
I can't help but feel I am damaging my chest freezer by using the Ranco controller. It works by killing the power to the unit when a certain temperature is reached, when it is in the middle of cycling. When it kills the power I hear a weird little "sputtering" sound that does not occur when I dont' have the Ranco attached and the fridge stops the compressor on its own... Oh well, this is why I bought it in the first place. Hopefully it will last a long time, it's a good little freezer for sure.
 
I have a VinoTemp wine cooler that holds 28 bottles of wine. I realized my fermenter fits in there perfectly (although the wine has to go elsewhere!). I set it on 66 degrees for my ales. I don't have any space for a second fridge right now so this might be a good idea for some, especially if you're also a wine drinker. It's pretty small and doesn't even use a compressor (thermo-electric). Temp range can be set at 54-66.
 
I can't help but feel I am damaging my chest freezer by using the Ranco controller. It works by killing the power to the unit when a certain temperature is reached, when it is in the middle of cycling. When it kills the power I hear a weird little "sputtering" sound that does not occur when I dont' have the Ranco attached and the fridge stops the compressor on its own... Oh well, this is why I bought it in the first place. Hopefully it will last a long time, it's a good little freezer for sure.

A Ranco can not ruin your freezer or refrigerator if used correctly. I set the origional control to full cold and let the Ranco totally control it. One thing that will hurt the compressor is a short cycle. If it has just turned off (with the Ranco in control) and you open the door then you are letting warm air in the freezer and if left open a bit too long will warm the interrior just enough to make the Ranco start the compressor again against the residual pressure still in the compressors lines which stresses the compressor.

This helps:
Tape your Ranco sensor to a bottle of beer, and tape a piece of bubble wrap over the sensor. This helps to keep short cycling from happening because it's thermal mass (The bottle) helps to keep short cycling from happening.

I ferment ales at 65F - 66F and lager at 50 - 53F. No matter which yeast you use it should give the proper range on the yeast package or on their web site.
 
I can't help but feel I am damaging my chest freezer by using the Ranco controller. It works by killing the power to the unit when a certain temperature is reached, when it is in the middle of cycling.

This is why I didn't do it that way. Instead I replaced the internal thermostat with a love controller (pretty much the same as the ranco) so everything else (auto-defrost, etc) can still run as designed. You can take a look at it in the projects list in my sig.

I should also mention that I purposely drop them below freezing (30 degrees) at the end of fermentation for 2 days to cold crash - would not want to attempt this any other way...

Oh, I would also recommend submerging the probe in a tube of goop from an ice pack so you aren't just reading the ambient temp.
 
This is why I didn't do it that way. Instead I replaced the internal thermostat with a love controller (pretty much the same as the ranco) so everything else (auto-defrost, etc) can still run as designed. You can take a look at it in the projects list in my sig..
That's OK too but I see no need for a defrost if the freezer never hits freezing for extended periods of time. You would have no frost to defrost.

I should also mention that I purposely drop them below freezing (30 degrees) at the end of fermentation for 2 days to cold crash - would not want to attempt this any other way...

I see no reason to go below freezing for a cold crash but to each his own.

Oh, I would also recommend submerging the probe in a tube of goop from an ice pack so you aren't just reading the ambient temp.

That is what I am doing with the bottle of beer and the bubble wrap. It could also be a bottle of water that you cap with a capper.
 
Is the probe submersible though? I dont' remember reading if it was or not. I'm assuming that you mean taping the probe to the outside of the bottle, right?

By the way, I opened up the water bottle today.... 48 degrees right on the nose! The Ranco worked great.
 
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