FLbrewnoob
Member
I bought a used fridge for the purpose of fermenting lagers at lower than Florida temps. I bought a Johnson temp controller and set everything up. We just started having a cold snap (35 - 45 deg F lows). The problem is the fridge internal temp drops to garage temp which is not much higher than outside temp. A beer I'm getting ready to make is using White Labs WLP833 liquid yeast. White labs lists optimum fermentation temp as 48 - 55. Since the fridge doesn't seem to have much insulating properties (since it reaches exterior temp internally) how do I keep the wort warm enough? Belts I've looked at don't allow extended operation time (more than 8 days). Since the fore casted temp range is 73 - 35 I need both heating and cooling depending on the day and time! Any suggestions? BTW, the beer is called Extreminator Doppelbock if that is important or will help.