Tempmate Question

[Bigbott]

Hello fellow brewers,

Well we finaly have our brew fridge set up with the tempmate installed !!

The question is my mate likes Largers & im doing Ales ??

We will be doing 3 vats up on sat morning a Blue moutains larger & a couple of kit ales,
Ive set the temp mate @ around 16 deg for his larger but what about the ales ??

Will it be ok to do both @ 16 deg or even lower maybe 14 ?? ,

I was hoping to keep the larger in for longer say 10 to 12 days because of the lower temp,
we are also useing US-05 & S-23 yeast not the std kit yeasts.




Cheers Rob.

[earle]

HI Rob

I don't use kit yeasts either but try to either brew lagers or ales so I don't have this temp control issue.

With ales I set at 18C and leave for 3 weeks, not only for fermentation to complete but to allow yeast to settle for clearer beer.

For lagers I start at 10C, after 6 days I increase to 13C and a day later increase to 16C then leave for 3 weeks (4 in total)

If I wanted to do the brews you have planned. I would start the lager this weekend at 10C, then do the ales next weekend. By then I would have increased the temp (16-18C) anyway. They would all be ready at the same time.

[warra48]

You have a conflict of interest!

My last lager was in primary for 3 weeks at 9.5ºC, then a couple of days at 18ºC for a diacetyl rest, then racked and down to 2ºC for 7 weeks before bottling.

What I'd do is to do your ale first. Set the fridge at 18ºC, and let it do its thing. You should find it will be substantially through fermentation within the first week. After that, you could really take it out of the fridge, and let it finish off for another week at ambient. Some ale yeasts will go lower than 18ºC, but you will slow them right down to almost a stop.

Then do the lager the following week. If you are using a true lager yeast, I recommend you don't go over about 12ºC, and let it go for about 3 weeks in primary. Then you can do like I did. Doing a lager will tie up your fridge for a substantial time both in primary and lagering.

Maybe you could do a faux lager with US05. You can do that at 17 to 18ºC. That's been done successfully by quite a number of brewers with reportedly good results.

[billybushcook]

Yep, Warra is all over it!
Horses For Courses!

Ales @ 18
Lagers @ 12

To do both at the same time you need two seperate brew boxes!

With my set up I have the advantage of being able to do both, my beer fridge (cold drinking beer) runs at 0-1 deg C. in which I can chill my bottles for drinking & a full fermenter for cold conditioning.
My brew box is a seperate insulated box (old deep freezer, big enough for two fermenters) which I use the TEMPMATE to pump cold water from the beer fridge for cooling, or a light for heating.

I also have another old deep freezer for brewing Ales in Winter (heating only) & use the main box with Tempmate for Lagers.

Either way I have two seperate boxes with independant temp control along with the fridge for cold cond,


Cheers, Mick.

[Bigbott]

Thanks Earle,Warra & Mick,

You wouldnt beleive what happen after putting the 2 largers in the fridge & settiting the tempmate
to 10 deg we noticed it wasnt pulling down real quick from 24 abient temp from having the door open
trying to fit both vats into the fridge,
I said to my mate just leave it over night & she will be right !!

Checked it in the morning & it was only sitting on about 13 to 14 deg wouldnt go any lower ??,
Shit what have we done wrong when wireing the temp mate up ?? a quick phone call to a mate
he is a electrician and he runs though a few things over the phone checking what was happening,
anyway he calls around yesterday arvo & finds that we forgot to hook the fan wire back up !!!

Ive read some where else in one of these topics that you should also tape the probe of the tempmate
to the side of the vat to get a better reading ??

+ my mate moved the vats into another fridge while he was waiting for him to check it out
would this have done anything to the beer / yeast after only been in there for 1 day ?? he sorta spashed
the vats around abit moving them about,

Also do the vats have be level we couldnt quite fit both in the fridge & had to put the rack on a lean
for the airlock to fit in for the top vat.




Cheers Rob.

[wrighty]

Gday Bigbott.
With your probe i just put mine in a 3 qtr full stubby of water. With air locks my advice is to chuck em ,i use gladwrap and the seal from the lid
like a big laccy band. this enables you to see whats going on with your brews and more space for your fermentors. The co2 will find its own way out.
Just use your hydro to take your readings as normal.

[warra48]

I have my TempMate probe against the side of the fermenter, covered with some insulating foam, and held in place with the rubber seal from the lid.

I also generally use clingwrap on the top of my fermenter, as it is the only way it fits my fermenting fridge.
If I use the lid, I need to use a blowoff tube.

Leaning the fermenter back from the tap end is a good idea in any case. I do it to allow the crud and yeast to drop away and leave the tap clearer for when I bottle.

[billybushcook]

+ 1 more for the clingwrap brigade, air locks are for girls!!!

Mick.

[Anna]

Yep! And we girls love 'em!!!