Is this chest freezer dying?

[badmajon]

I moved into this place and I noticed a small chest freezer in the garage. I turned it on, it made noise and seemed to get cold so I assumed it worked.

I just finished a no chill batch. I put the hot jerry can of wort in the freezer with my temp controller set at 18 degrees c (stc1000).

The weird thing is, the freezer won't stay on. I sometimes walk in and catch it on, but it's not staying on like my other bigger chest freezer I used last time. My only hope is that the wort is too hot for it to cool efficiently and this is some kind of safety mechanism to keep the compressor from overloading... And it will work better once temps have gone down.

Thoughts?

 

[Stealthcruiser]

Your freezer is sensing the air temp, not the "hot jerry can" temp.
It needs a / the temp sensor from the freezer, sensing the jerry can alone, hence the main reason folks use an external controller, that has a temp probe that you can place on the product you wish cooled.

 

[badmajon]

That's what I have though, a stc-1000 controller with the probe taped to the side of the jerry can. I think maybe I should remove the freezer's thermostat?

 

[day_trippr]

Removing the thermostat isn't necessary if you have your freezer plugged into your controller.

You didn't mention it, but you need to insulate the probe from the effects of the keezer air. I use a ~4" square of inch-thick closed cell foam and that works very well...

Cheers!

 

[wilserbrewer]

Cooling 5 gallons of hot wort is a lot of "work" for a small freezer. Perhaps it is shutting off intermittently.