Conical cooling overshooting

[USMChueston0311]

cold crashing in one, just pitched in the other, both cf15s, on a glycol chiller, res at 25-28, and its overshooting the not bubbling yeast down from 70 to 65.5.

Obviously because the glycol reservoir is so cold, but I hear people talk all the time about running multiple fermenters off one chiller, so am I missing something?

I have heat blankets on both, and it’s been stuck at 65.5 for 20-30 minutes. This is not good for the yeast I just pitched, so any suggestions would be helpful. There is no exothermic energy happening yet so it’s not raising in heat at all.

British ale wpl002 yeast, 12 gallons of porter.

 

[Gameface]

Oh, 65.5? That's not hurting your yeast one tiny little bit. In fact, I'd be attempting to maintain a fermentation temp around 63F for that yeast. Yes, I know the manufacturers recommend range, and I think that yeast is better a little lower than that. I'd be far more concerned fermenting at 70F than at 65F.

But that has nothing to do with your conical not maintaining the temps you want. But I think you're being impatient. Let the heaters bring it back up wherever you want it and see if it stabilizes.

 

[USMChueston0311]

I started at 70 for pitch as that was the temp of my starter, and was going to bump down.

So maybe set at 65? Ferment there? I’m worried about the cooling cycle overshooting set temp by 3-4 degrees cooler, and the heater not bringing it back up quick enough. Although there is no exothermic energy warming it up yet, should set bubbles soon.

In your opinion why do you go below manufacturers recommended temps?

 

[Gameface]

I started at 70 for pitch as that was the temp of my starter, and was going to bump down.

So maybe set at 65? Ferment there? I’m worried about the cooling cycle overshooting set temp by 3-4 degrees cooler, and the heater not bringing it back up quick enough. Although there is no exothermic energy warming it up yet, should set bubbles soon.

In your opinion why do you go below manufacturers recommended temps?

Generally, the cooler you ferment the cleaner the yeast character. And in my experience, when you're using a specific yeast to get a certain type of character (like using an English yeast for some stone fruit esters) the yeast will provide that character just fine while otherwise fermenting clean of other yeast character when you ferment cool.

I think it is important when fermenting cool that you are maintaining consistent temps and that you pitch plenty of healthy yeast and have good aeration/oxygenation. I also start raising temps on the third day of active fermentation to help keep the yeast going until it's done.

 

[USMChueston0311]

Copy. I’ll bump it down to 65? Or should I just go to 63?

And raise to 65-66 after day three?

I want the malty chewy characteristics for this porter.

I oxygenated with carbsotne and bottled oxygen, and pitched 800-900 billion cells in an4L starter.

Slants and agar agar pressure cooker etc will be here tomorrow, going to start growing my own colonies and never buying yeast again at least for a long time!

 

[USMChueston0311]

And I have heating blanket and glycol chiller with spikes temp control package. How do I stop the undershooting or coolant temp? Goes 3-4 below my set point and takes forever to come back up. I expect it won’t take nearly as long once it’s actively fermenting but in the mean time?

 

[mongoose33]

I have a Penguin chiller that I often set at 28 degrees, and it'll cause a ping-pong effect of temp as it overshoots on the downside, then the heater struggles to bring it back up, it overshoots....

The trick is to have a higher chiller temp at that point in the fermentation. I've used 50 degrees for an ale fermenting in the 60s, that works pretty well for me. Then when it's time to crash, down to 28 again.

 

[USMChueston0311]

Problem is I’m cold crashing in my other fermenter and just starting in the other.

It just cooled, and overshot by .7 degrees too cold. Wasn’t as bad as the first time. Which I wasn’t home the first time so idk how long it ran for etc.

 

[USMChueston0311]

Make that 1.4 finally bottomed out. I don’t like the fact spikes controller (a “re-engineered”) inkbird doesn’t let you change the settings. It’s set to their standards is a 1.4 degree undershoot on temp, IE 66 set point, shoots down to 64.6 going to affect me that bad?

What do you recommend I set at for this yeast? You mentioned 63, will that do good and give the maltyness I’m looking for? Then bump up to 66-68 after 3 days?

 

[USMChueston0311]

Now down to 64.1 if I could adjust the swing and make it stop about a degree higher I’d be fine my guess but I can’t...