Learning how to operate my brewing fridge.....

[jcfontario]

I got a small (7 cu ft) fridge which I am using as a fridge for cold fermentations and lagering. My first beer in this fridge is a Kolsch which has been lagering/cold crashing for almost 3 weeks now. I have tried to keep the temperature in the 30 to 40 F range and have been checking the temperature every couple of days.

Today, I went to add some gelatin to the beer and discovered that I had partial "beersicle". The beer closest to the back of the fridge (where the cooling coils are) had frozen into a block, so now I am leaving it at room temperature for a couple of hours so that it can melt.

I am hoping that it won't affect the beer (I don't think that it should), but in the future, I will probably need to turn my fermenter every couple of days to get a more even temperature distribution.

 

[hotbeer]

Is this just a normal fridge and you are relying on it's own controls to maintain the preferred temp, or is this something made expressly for fermentation chilling?

If it's just a plain jane refrigerator then I'd recommend you have a separate temperature controller to turn it on and off when the temps go outside what you desire.

Inkbird and Digiten make inexpensive temp controllers for around 25 bucks. I've got two of the Digiten controllers and they work very well. Be sure to know what the max amperage is for what you are connecting them to.

 

[Sammy86]

I got a small (7 cu ft) fridge which I am using as a fridge for cold fermentations and lagering. My first beer in this fridge is a Kolsch which has been lagering/cold crashing for almost 3 weeks now. I have tried to keep the temperature in the 30 to 40 F range and have been checking the temperature every couple of days.

Today, I went to add some gelatin to the beer and discovered that I had partial "beersicle". The beer closest to the back of the fridge (where the cooling coils are) had frozen into a block, so now I am leaving it at room temperature for a couple of hours so that it can melt.

I am hoping that it won't affect the beer (I don't think that it should), but in the future, I will probably need to turn my fermenter every couple of days to get a more even temperature distribution.

Sounds like you need a temperature controller and STAT!

 

[CharlaineC]

Thank you for this thread Just used a refer for fermenting for the first time and found it a pain to manually keep it at 68 degrees when its 105 out. lol ordering 2 of these as soon as I can

 

[kevin58]

Buy and Inkbird temperature controller. Temperature Controller ITC-308 – INKBIRD