Sad, sad morning laced with panic

[Boodlemania]

Sunday - brewed 10G of braukaiser's Helles recipe, placed in my fermentation chamber made from a large chest freezer.

Monday-Wednesday - chugging happily away at 8C.

Today - Leaving for work, checked chamber as I normally do - 10.8C. WTF? Controller was calling for cooling but freezer wasn't running. Fast forward through troubleshooting and the freezer compressor is locked up. %#*#%&@&*@$!!!

So (here's the sad part) I emptied my kegerator, dialed it's temperature up (no readout, just a dial), and put the two carboys of unfinished Helles in there. I'm hoping that I'm close to the right temp for the helles, won't know till I get back home tonight. Meanwhile, I HAVE NO BEER TO DRINK since I had to empty the kegerator to save the helles.

 

[homebeerbrewer]

I doubt you'll be able to save your freezer, but this could be a learning experience for you. The compressor needs some time between cycles. If your temp controller doesn't have a time delay, the compressor probably cycled too quickly. This will lock your compressor up. You might want to invest in a digital controller to be able to set a variance to allow for a longer delay between cycles.

Good luck.

 

[Boodlemania]

Yep, I use the EBay aquarium controller and have a 10-minute "short cycle" delay. Also kept ALOT of wood blocks, etc in freezer to keep the thermal mass as high as possible to avoid short cycles. Freezer may have cycled once every couple hours at most.

Freezer was 20+ years old. Its time had just come.

 

[dale1038]

I have done some lager tests where I've done 2 days at proper temp, and then up to room temp. The key is to leave it on the yeast cake for a month minimum. Best bock I ever made was like that.