Temp Control Issue

[Duff Man]

I have a chest freezer (no collar) with a Kegco TC-321 controller. I put a carboy in on Sunday and set the controller to 62 (+/- 2.5) degrees. Everything was good until Wednesday morning when I found the temp alarm going off, reading 5 degrees F, and the freezer still running. I unplugged it and checked the beer. It was still slowly fermenting so I pulled it out, so to speak. I had the temp probe hanging reading ambient temp because I had this problem before with both a thermowell and the probe just taped to the carboy… So what the fuck? Is it just a shitty controller? Why won’t it cut power at 59.5? Anyone else come across this in the past and find a work-around?

[Duff Man]

Kegco sent a new unit. Plug panel sensor short circuited. We'll see if the beer turns out after hitting about 54 degrees...

[BDawg]

Good to know they are responsive.
I wanted to reply but didn't have anything to add to your first post because I don't know squat about that controller.
How low did the temp get? Was it in active primary fermentation, or past that?

[Duff Man]

BDawg, thank you for the reply. I actually had the bright idea to call them right after posting and they were totally cool. It only got down to 52F(ish) because I was checking the temp often. It was still really active when the freezer went super cold so not too much harm done if any. Since the probe was just hanging the beer probably wasn't affected as much as it could have been if I was still reading from the thermowell. Now that I have the new controller it has held temp perfectly. Just pulled it out of the freezer tonight and it's slowly rising to ambient house temp (72F eventually). I plan on following more of a Tasty schedule from here and I'll probably keg or throw it into secondary on Tuesday. Concerning space, it'll most likely go straight to a keg so I can put it into the smaller keezer with another keg.

Any thoughts on that? I want a bright lager so should I lean towards a secondary glass carboy? I don't have a filter and don't plan on any other finings/gelatin...

[BDawg]

sounds like a good plan to me