Need advice converting refrigerator for fermentation

[steve1nh]

Hi all!

I'm in the proces of purchasing the equipment I'm going to need for my first home brewing adventure (I have brewed at a BOP before).

I'm planning on using a refrigerator for the fermentation process and am looking for advice on the temperature control. I've pretty much decided on using the Edgestar refigerator designed for kegerator conversion. It's a little pricey, but I have the Edgestar kegerator now and have been very happy with it. It has a little over 5 cubic feet and no freezer area, plus the inside of the door curves out a little to accomodate a keg. Anyways, I'm wondering what the best way to control the temperature is. I've seen the digital controllers that you plug the refrigerator into, then plug into wall, as well as digital controllers such as the Love that control the compressor directly. Is one better than the other or is it just a matter of preference? I have a thermowell in the stopper for the carboy and am going to intall one in the primary fermentation bucket also.

Any advice is appreciated!
Thanks! Steve

 

[Paulgs3]

I'm a fan of the chest freezers. I have a chest freezer for my dispensing as well as one for a fermentation chamber. I can easily fit two 6gal BBs in my fermenter which is only an 14cuFT chest freezer, and still have room to spare for things like grains.

I have two controllers, a Johnson analog and a Ranco ETC (digital). I use the johnson in my "Storage chest" and that temp stays pretty constant for me. I keep it at 40-45 for serving beer and it works beautifully. It was a PITA to get it set right as the dial is way off. I Had to use a secondary thermometer and I have the probe in a smaller 2 liter container filled with water which helped the stability a ton. Mine was part of a package deal when I bought my keg starter kit. I can't recommend buying this analog system.

Fermentation is what you were asking for, I use the Ranco for this, as I feel I have way better control over the temp. Mine is a simple switch which controls the power to the chest freezer. When it reaches temp, it cuts off power. There is no modification to the freezer itself. The freezer plugs into the controller and the controller plugs into the wall. I can set the differential to whatever range I want to have a tighter control of flux. I keep it at five to get the temp where I need it before fermentation starts (first 6 hours), then switch it down to 2 and even then my freezer kicks in maybe twice a day.

I do not stick the probe into a thermowell, I instead attach it to the side of the carboy and I used bubble wrap and saran wrap to secure and insulate it. I do have a thermowell, but I use a long glass thermometer that I stick in the well instead. If you are going to use the thermowell and the probe I highly recommend you cool in stages as the outside will cool before in the inside and you might end up going way too low.

I love my set up, and you will notice a huge difference between the temp controlled and a swamp cooler setup!!

Enjoy!

 

[usfmikeb]

I use a chest freezer as well, and also attach the temp probe to the carboy in order to control the temp of the wort. However, I use the aquarium controller off eBay. There's a huge thread around here somewhere on how to use it. Much cheaper than a Johnson controller.

 

[steve1nh]

Thank you for the advice. I'm going to rethink going with the Edgestar fridge. Using a chest freezer sounds like a much less complicated (and less expensive) route. I read about people putting the probe on the side of the carboy and insulating, so I'll definately be doing that and I'll use a temperature probe in the thermowell. I was planning on using a wort chiller, so hopefull this will help with the temperature stability.

Cheers!