Temp controlling a freezer

[Ozwald]

It's pretty tasty, I've only had 2 samples from the same batch (08, I think). On the plus side, it was at GABF & Jim Koch was the man with the pitcher - at one point he chugged about a quarter of a pitcher of it.

The beer itself is like sipping on a fine port. Still, very sweet, very complex, no fusels IIRC. Not sure if it's worth buying a whole bottle to try, but it's certainly an interesting experience. If I had the extra scratch laying around I'd buy a bottle, but a lot of that value, for me, is having that empty on the shelf for years to come.

Out of curiosity, what are they asking for the dust bottle?

[DonMoleon]

It's pretty tasty, I've only had 2 samples from the same batch (08, I think). On the plus side, it was at GABF & Jim Koch was the man with the pitcher - at one point he chugged about a quarter of a pitcher of it.

The beer itself is like sipping on a fine port. Still, very sweet, very complex, no fusels IIRC. Not sure if it's worth buying a whole bottle to try, but it's certainly an interesting experience. If I had the extra scratch laying around I'd buy a bottle, but a lot of that value, for me, is having that empty on the shelf for years to come.

Out of curiosity, what are they asking for the dust bottle?

It was a couple months ago, so I don't remember the price, although I do recall thinking that I wouldn't want to pay for it. It was in a glass case with wooden framing, sitting on the cashier's counter like a museum exhibit. I don't know what year.

How much does a bottle usually go for?

[Ozwald]

MSRP ~$150-$200 a bottle. Since it's only released in small amounts every other year, you can double or triple that price on eBay. I think I recall seeing a bottle listed over $800 a few years ago. $300-400 was a little more average for the eBay resellers. I tried to get a bottle from the release a couple years back, but it's not allowed in Montana since it's too high of an ABV to classify as beer & there was something stopping them from selling it in the state approved liquor stores. Here you can buy beer/wine at the grocery store & gas station, but they can't sell liquor. The liquor stores aren't state owned, but they're about as close to that as you can be without actually being state owned. They're not allowed to sell beer, but they can sell liquor & wine. Utopias fell in that middle ground & since it couldn't be classified under our state's definitions, they can't sell it here at all.

[spiderwrangler]

it's not allowed in Montana since it's too high of an ABV to classify as beer

Just wondering, but what's the limit there? OH caps at 12%... any beers above that are not beers, they are some sort of undefined alcoholic beverage that isn't permitted.

[konkers]

Apologies for de-de-railing the thread and getting overly technical. The short answer is as BeaverBarber said, that controller should work fine.... but.....

Ferment with fahrenheit if possible because it's more accurate than celsius...it's a lot easier to hit 67 F than it is to his 19.863 C.

This is not really the case for a few or reasons.

If your controller is reading out in whole degrees F (i.e. 67 F not 67.0 F) like the Ranco that MoreBeer! sells, that means that the temperature could be anywhere between 66.5 F and 67.5 F (~19.2 C - ~19.7 C.) Now take the same controller reading 19 C. That could be between 18.5 C and 19.5 C (65.3 F - 67.1 F). The actual difference between those is quite small +-0.5 F vs +-0.9 F.

Now take this a step further and look at how the controller actually regulates the temperature. Going back to the Ranco, it lets you set a temperature differential between 1 F and 30 F in whole degrees. If set to its smallest value (1 F) this means that it will turn on the freezer at 68 F (actually 67.5 F to 68.5 F) and off at 67 F (actually 66.5 F - 67.5 F). Depending on how well insulated the freezer is, you might not even be able to get that tight because you'll be cycling the compressor too often. So now we're looking a range of 2 F vs 3.6 F.

In addition to the temperature differential adding 1F to the top in you'll get overshoot on the bottom. This is because 5 gallons of beer has a lot of thermal mass which means that it's pretty resistant to changing temperature. Lets assume you've got your temperature probe so that it's measuring the actual temperature of the beer (as often recommended on Brew Strong.) By the time your beer has gotten to 67F, the freezer's cooled the air around it considerably lower that 67F. When the compressor turns off the air in the freezer will continue to cool the beer until they reach the same temperature. I have no idea what the overshoot would be in this case but lets say it's 1F. Now we're looking at a swing of 3 F vs 4.6 F.

I'm by no means an expert on fermentation control but it seems that that extra 1.6 F swing is not going to have a noticeable impact on the outcome of the beer.

Even assuming it did have a noticeable impact, lets look at the actual controller that DonMoleon is looking at. That reads out in tenths of a degree C (meaning 19.0 C is between 18.95 C and 19.05 C) and can be set with as low a differential as 0.3 C. This means that, not taking into account overshoot, you'll have a temperature range between 18.95 C and 19.35C for a total range of 0.4 C or 0.72 F (compared to the 2F the Ranco is capable of.)

This is not even taking into account how accurate the controller's temperature probes are. DonMoleon's controller is accurate to +-1C where as the Ranco doesn't even list its accuracy in the manual. I have no idea how the offset in the accuracy changes over time. If it's pretty stable you can ignore it. 19C wil always be the same for you so you can tune your process around it. If you switch to a new controller, you might need to re-tune.

So, yeah, that a pretty long winded technical way of saying "relax, don't worry, have a homebrew." You'll probably want to set the cycle time to the controller's max of 10m. You'll also want to check how much current your freezer will draw. That controller is only rated at 10A @ 240V.

Cheers,
Erik

[DonMoleon]

Thanks Konkers. This is something I probably wouldn't have thought of if someone didn't bring it to my attention. My biggest concern has actually been whether my house can even handle another fridge. At the moment I can't turn on the microwave if the dryer is running or else it will trip the circuit breaker. I was hoping the addition of this freezer wouldn't add too much strain to my already overloaded electric system, cause I figured that regulating such high temps won't use much electricity. Am I mistaken?

In regards to the de-railing discussion on high ABV beers, I wasn't aware that there are States that can't sell certain types of beer. That seems quite silly to me. Of course, I live in a country that doesn't allow home brewing and also doesn't allow the sale of any alcohol between 2pm-5pm every day (WTF?). Any mom 'n pop store will sell 24/7 though. There's a good little article that just came out on the recent craft beer movement in Thailand and the challenges it has faced due to ridiculous government legislation. I'll post it in a new thread for anyone who may be interested. Here's the thread link:

viewtopic.php?f=10&t=30151&p=277747#p277747

[spiderwrangler]

For the most part it's still going to pull the same amount of power whether you are chilling to 60 or 40, it will just run longer or more often to stay at the low temp.

[BeaverBarber]

Apologies for de-de-railing the thread and getting overly technical. The short answer is as BeaverBarber said, that controller should work fine.... but.....

Ferment with fahrenheit if possible because it's more accurate than celsius...it's a lot easier to hit 67 F than it is to his 19.863 C.

This is not really the case for a few or reasons.

If your controller is reading out in whole degrees F (i.e. 67 F not 67.0 F) like the Ranco that MoreBeer! sells, that means that the temperature could be anywhere between 66.5 F and 67.5 F (~19.2 C - ~19.7 C.) Now take the same controller reading 19 C. That could be between 18.5 C and 19.5 C (65.3 F - 67.1 F). The actual difference between those is quite small +-0.5 F vs +-0.9 F.

Now take this a step further and look at how the controller actually regulates the temperature. Going back to the Ranco, it lets you set a temperature differential between 1 F and 30 F in whole degrees. If set to its smallest value (1 F) this means that it will turn on the freezer at 68 F (actually 67.5 F to 68.5 F) and off at 67 F (actually 66.5 F - 67.5 F). Depending on how well insulated the freezer is, you might not even be able to get that tight because you'll be cycling the compressor too often. So now we're looking a range of 2 F vs 3.6 F.

In addition to the temperature differential adding 1F to the top in you'll get overshoot on the bottom. This is because 5 gallons of beer has a lot of thermal mass which means that it's pretty resistant to changing temperature. Lets assume you've got your temperature probe so that it's measuring the actual temperature of the beer (as often recommended on Brew Strong.) By the time your beer has gotten to 67F, the freezer's cooled the air around it considerably lower that 67F. When the compressor turns off the air in the freezer will continue to cool the beer until they reach the same temperature. I have no idea what the overshoot would be in this case but lets say it's 1F. Now we're looking at a swing of 3 F vs 4.6 F.

I'm by no means an expert on fermentation control but it seems that that extra 1.6 F swing is not going to have a noticeable impact on the outcome of the beer.

Even assuming it did have a noticeable impact, lets look at the actual controller that DonMoleon is looking at. That reads out in tenths of a degree C (meaning 19.0 C is between 18.95 C and 19.05 C) and can be set with as low a differential as 0.3 C. This means that, not taking into account overshoot, you'll have a temperature range between 18.95 C and 19.35C for a total range of 0.4 C or 0.72 F (compared to the 2F the Ranco is capable of.)

This is not even taking into account how accurate the controller's temperature probes are. DonMoleon's controller is accurate to +-1C where as the Ranco doesn't even list its accuracy in the manual. I have no idea how the offset in the accuracy changes over time. If it's pretty stable you can ignore it. 19C wil always be the same for you so you can tune your process around it. If you switch to a new controller, you might need to re-tune.

So, yeah, that a pretty long winded technical way of saying "relax, don't worry, have a homebrew." You'll probably want to set the cycle time to the controller's max of 10m. You'll also want to check how much current your freezer will draw. That controller is only rated at 10A @ 240V.

Cheers,
Erik

I'm not sure you if realize this, but you just made my point exactly...thank you. Like I said, you need to purchase one sophisticated piece of machinery to ferment in celsius to get as accurate as you can with a simple dial on a Johnson Controller in Fahrenheit.

..."If your controller is reading out in whole degrees F (i.e. 67 F not 67.0 F) like the Ranco that MoreBeer! sells, that means that the temperature could be anywhere between 66.5 F and 67.5 F (~19.2 C - ~19.7 C.) Now take the same controller reading 19 C. That could be between 18.5 C and 19.5 C (65.3 F - 67.1 F). The actual difference between those is quite small +-0.5 F vs +-0.9 F"...

...and it's still not as accurate. I close my case your honor.