Temperature Controllers

Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum

Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

jakehale

Well-Known Member
Joined
May 19, 2011
Messages
105
Reaction score
3
Location
Virginia Beach
Hey folks,,

basically new here but have been reading my butt off! I have a question about these temp controller i see on here to help control Ferm temp.

Building a Keezer is way down the road but theres nothing wrong will trying to get a handle on something before I make the move.

If i have a Freezer (never owned a stand alone freezer of an type), how do i go about about keeping it "warm", i guess... when i think of a freezer i think of ice, cold, freezing. so if i want to "warm" it up for the fermentation......????? i take it that a freezer will stay cold with out actually freezing?? trust me, im not trying to be a smart a** here...

that is the question i have about the temp controller. if i put a controller on my "freezer". Does it warm it up (per my setting) and cool it down, to maintain that constant ideal fermentation temperature? in other words, i dont have a HEATER in my freezer to warm it up???

thanks for listening to me bable..

jake
 
You certainly can put a heater in there. Usually a lightbulb or a fermwrap. But, if your target temperatures are below your ambient temperatures, you shouldn't need to.
 
The controller overrides the thermostat in the freezer. Set the freezer to MAX and the controller will turn the compressor on and off as needed to maintain your temp.

IF your temps are too cold, and you need to warm instead of cool, you can place a small heater of a sort, and switch the controller to "HEAT" mode.

If you are both too cold and too warm for just one or the other, you can buy a controller that can turn on both the freezer when it needs it, and a heater when it needs it. These Dual Stage controllers are a little more than the single stage variety.
But judging on where your location is, I think you will probably not have to worry about it being to cold down there.

You can buy a temp controller for around $80 or less. And small freezer can probably be had for less than $100. The price is a bit of money, but honestly, temp control is debatably the most important aspect of brewing the best beer you can. Most everything else is technique oriented, rather than a additional cost.

With a temp controller fermentation chamber, it's almost a "set it and forget it" deal. No maintenance or fiddly stuff required. Very nice if you can spare the money.
 
thanks. I was just wondering thats all. Oh it does get cold here. we had almost a foot of snow this winter?. haha

This thing will have to be in the garage. in the summer it is DANG hot, winter it is cold. the heater. do you actually put it in the freezer? like a little portable heater?
 
Don't see why not! I'm just trying to get one of these set up too, if I end up putting it somewhere that gets cold i was planning on getting one of those brew belts to warm it up.
 
I use a hairdryer, built in gfci, built in fan

That's a pretty good idea. How large is your chamber if you don't mind me asking? I'd imagine even with a large chest freezer, the hair dryer wouldn't need to run very long to raise the overall temp. Do you have it mounted to the side to keep it out of the way?

I've just been hanging a brew belt in my ferm chamber (just hanging in the chamber, not wrapped around the vessel), but my chamber is a small converted wine fridge only big enough for one brew at a time, so it does the job.
 
Don't see why not! I'm just trying to get one of these set up too, if I end up putting it somewhere that gets cold i was planning on getting one of those brew belts to warm it up.
In the section of my fermentation chamber where only one fermenter is i use a brewers belt connected to an aquarium temp control and it works well. The section that holds 2 fermenters has a 36 inch rope reptile aquarium run under the slide out shelves. Just waiting on the parts to finish my second aquarium temp controller build.
 
fall-line said:
That's a pretty good idea. How large is your chamber if you don't mind me asking? I'd imagine even with a large chest freezer, the hair dryer wouldn't need to run very long to raise the overall temp. Do you have it mounted to the side to keep it out of the way?

I've just been hanging a brew belt in my ferm chamber (just hanging in the chamber, not wrapped around the vessel), but my chamber is a small converted wine fridge only big enough for one brew at a time, so it does the job.

Around a 22 cf upright freezer. I mounted it under the middle shelf
 
will a freeze also suffice as a fermentor? again with my lack of Freezer knowledge, will a freezer run at the 60-70 temp range for the purpose of maintaining the ideal temperature?
 
Yep, as long as you are using a temperature controller that is capable of regulating the cooling compressor and/or a heater, the freezer will work fine. You'd just set the freezer's internal setting to it's coldest setting and connect it to the controller. The controller will make sure that the freezer's compressor only runs when the chamber needs to be cooled. Conversely, the heater will only kick on when the temp falls. In such a highly insulated environment like a freezer, you will find that either cycle should be very short. For a ferm chamber, I'd suggest favoring an upright freezer vs a chest freezer, as lifting the full fermentation vessels in & out could be treacherous.

There are some simple solutions out there for those wanting to convert a freezer to a refrigerator temperature range, but for your purposes I would highly suggest you just look at the "Love controller" or "ebay aquarium controller" as seen elsewhere in the DIY forum. There are a lot of threads detailing people's builds, which are informative and at time entertaining. :)
 
Here is my fermentation chest freezer...

I'm using a PID I had laying around. I'm using the built in alarm relay to pull in a motor contactor I had. Since the thermocouple is measuring the air temp it get a bit of a temperature swing. But the average and the temperature of the fermentator stays at the set temperature of the PID.

DSC00335.jpg

DSC00336.jpg
 
diag.jpg


This might help you out a little more.

When the freezer is plugged in, it is trying to get in the range of the green box (depending on if you have the knob turned to 1 or 10). So the simplest thing to is is just turn the whole unit on and off. Essentially this is how it controls itself once it see -5 it will turn off the compressor until it sees 0 then turn back on. Depending where you have your dial at.

So you have a device that measure the temperature inside the freezer (the long silver cord in my picture) it feeds back to the controller and tells it the temperature inside. You set the temperature you want (65 like in the picture). Then you set your hysteresis (tolerance). I have mine at 1 degree. So it will turn on at 66 and off at 64 thus giving you an average of 65. Some people will do 2 or 3 degrees, either way the average still ends up being 65. There are many other variables you will find when messing around and lean to manipulate them.

I love the chest freezer, it works so much better than my cabinet I built.
 
The ideal solution is a dual stage electronic controller if you want the transition from heating and cooling to be automatic. If you can anticipate when the seasonal change is going to change the heating/cooling requirement you can use a single stage controller to save some money.

One word of warning on the heating: Don't use something with too high of a wattage. In this relatively small, well insulated box, you only really need 25-40 watts of heating, maybe 100 if your ambient temps are really cold. I practically melted the walls of my fridge with a 750 watt heater after goofing the settings on the controller.
 
In this relatively small, well insulated box, you only really need 25-40 watts of heating, maybe 100 if your ambient temps are really cold.

+1
I know brewers who use a short string of x-mas lights as a heater. I use a 150W ceramic infrared heat bulb in a $1 light fixture, and it's overkill. I wish I'd bought the 75W or 100W bulb instead.
 
I LOVE that auber inst device. $75 fridge on CL, then that thing....perfect fermentation chamber.....unfortunately I am about to get a $1000 stainless fermentation chamber because my POS GE fridge/freezing is crapping out!
 
Does everybody have their freezer set on MAX (as in coldest) when hooked up to the temperature controller? Does it matter from a cooling or energy perspective?

I don't think it matters since the temps will always be above even the highest end of the freezers thermostat range.
 
Back
Top