3 Temp Fermentation Controller 1 chamber

My problem is, when I cold crash at 5C/40F the freezer dips down to -11C/12.2F and my blowoff water freezes. I was wondering if you had a solution?

I have just read the thread where it tells how to change the lowest temperature the freezer can go to. I will do that when I have all the beer out of it. For now I am going to use cheap vodka so it won't freeze. I was wondering if you had any other option or it it even freezes for you.

if fermentation is done, you shouldn't need a blowoff or airlock, except to equalize pressure. why not take the lock off and bung it once it's down to 33 degrees?

PDX_T said:

if fermentation is done, you shouldn't need a blowoff or airlock, except to equalize pressure. why not take the lock off and bung it once it's down to 33 degrees?

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The blowoff is for the other 4 or 5 other brews I have going on at the same time. They are fermenting at their normal temperature, 13c to 15c.

raymadigan said:

The blowoff is for the other 4 or 5 other brews I have going on at the same time. They are fermenting at their normal temperature, 13c to 15c.

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well that IS a problem! Too much beer!

PDX_T said:

well that IS a problem! Too much beer!

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Some problems are better then others.

Huaco, I really, really liked this idea and the execution of the idea. I'm trying to replicate this build sometime very soon (as in this week/weekend if possible).

I know you just had a change in employment, so I'm sure this forum isn't your first priority right now. That said, could we possibly get some additional pictures of the inside of the junction box so we can see the full wiring setup you've got?

I've got a basic understanding of how to wire the controllers since I've wired one before to a single outlet, but I'm a little confused as to where to wire in the fuses for instance, or how other things look.

Any and all guidance you could provide would be just awesome!

Yeah man, I'll try to come up with something soon. It may be a sketch, but it would still make better sense than the pictures...

Thank you, sir! Anything you could elaborate on would be very helpful.

I am happy to report that the heat tape I also bought from reptilebasics.com is likely going to work out just fine. I was a little unhappy to discover that even at the lowest temperature setting, the chest freezer I've acquired runs too cold for the heat tape to raise or keep the 13 gallon fermentor at fermentation temperatures. So it looks like I will be controlling the freezer with one of the STC-1000s also.

I had hoped that I could dual purpose the freezer to ferment and store my yeast bank and bulk hops, but it looks like I'll have to get another cheaper, smaller freezer for that. No big deal fortunately.

PistolsAtDawn said:

I was a little unhappy to discover that even at the lowest temperature setting, the chest freezer I've acquired runs too cold for the heat tape to raise or keep the 13 gallon fermentor at fermentation temperatures. So it looks like I will be controlling the freezer with one of the STC-1000s also.

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Here is a thread that show how to set the low temperature range of these chest freezers. Maybe that will help.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f51/gu...mostat-32f-eliminate-external-control-249612/

raymadigan said:

Here is a thread that show how to set the low temperature range of these chest freezers. Maybe that will help.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f51/gu...mostat-32f-eliminate-external-control-249612/

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Thank you for that. I had actually seen that thread before. Unfortunately, if I were to change the coarse adjustment on the freezer, then it would be too high in temperature to also use for proper yeast bank and bulk hop storage, which need to be in as cold an environment as possible. WHY I thought that would work with the heat tape was probably just wishful thinking, or a failure to realize how cold chest freezers get when left to run at factory settings.

It's a trivial matter to control the freezer's temperature with the controller I already have, but by doing so I cannot use it for more than fermentation and/or serving. Still, not a big deal since the primary purpose of getting that 14.8 cu ft chest freezer was to have enough room to ferment up to a possible 32 gallons at a time using the two 13 gallon fermentors (I got them from an ebay listing for about $30 each, shipped) as well as a standard brew bucket.

I have a system very similar to this and yesterday I found a problem that people should be aware of. My system can ferment 6 at the same time. I had 3 fermentors going at about 18.5C just finished up a forth beer. It was warm outside so the temperature of the wort was about 24C. I wanted to ferment this beer at 18 so I thought I would pitch the yeast and put it in place and the system would bring it down to the right temperature. The problem is, all of the other fermentors were within their correct temperature range and so a cooling cycle didn't go on for some time. In this time the yeast started to work and before I could do anything the temperature of the wort was at 25.5C. And even when a cool cycle did occur, because goal temperature of the controlling fermentor was relatively high, there wasn't enough of a cooling cycle to pull the wort down.

The solution is to always have the controlling fermentor in the cold crash state so it can have a longer cool cycle to bring the wort temp down. I faked this by setting a controller to 4C with the sensor just in the freezer. Last night at midnight the temp was at 24.6 and this morning it is at 18C and bubbling away.

The situation is because they are independent devices and the temperature is controlled by one of the devices. Once it is satisfied then the cooler goes off. A more coordinated device would work better, or having a controller just for the freezer or maybe just let the freezer be the freezer and not attempt to control it. ust set its low temperature like

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f51/gu...mostat-32f-eliminate-external-control-249612/

and then manage the heat of the fermentors.

Huaco, I'm finally getting around to putting my controllers together, but I have a question for you relating to the fuses in your particular case.

You list 3 fuses, and I'm having difficulty guessing where you might have placed them.

Did you place these inline between the powered terminal block and each controller at power position 1 only?

Did you splice all three powered conductors together after the fuse for each controller?

Did you place the fuses before the powered terminal block and somehow run three separate circuits off of one block?

Thanks for any help.

If I remember right, I ran the fuse from the terminal block to the individual controllers. That way if one controller blows a fuse the other two are still functional.

Huaco said:

If I remember right, I ran the fuse from the terminal block to the individual controllers. That way if one controller blows a fuse the other two are still functional.

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How is this holding up for you? I'm considering a similar build because I need to start controlling 2+ batches at once.

It worked quite well for the time I used it.
After moving last year and my brewery down and out, I had time to reconsider what I want to do. It will still do it's job quite well and I will probably use this controller again once my buddy gets his walk-in cooler. Right now though, I'm not using it. As a matter of fact, I salvaged a controller out of it to fix my original STC-1000 controller I built. It blew the cooling relay.