Aussiedistiller, Home Distilling, Moonshine, Home Brew

As the title suggests I thought I would share an experience. The last couple of washes I have put down have had the usual aquarium heater attached to and STC-1000 controller set at 28 degrees.

I usually have 2 x 60L fermenters going for my whisky washes. First time I noticed it one of the washes after a few days had dropped in temp back to about 23 degrees the other one was siting solid on 28. Hmmm I thought, must be something wrong with that heater, of well benefit of the doubt.

Next ferments and bugger me both of them have dropped back to between 22 and 24 after a few days. Well that can't be right I thought so I did some more investigation. What I ended up finding was that I had been putting too much of the cord that the little temp probe is attached to in the fermenter and once the majority of the ferment was done and the yeast dropped to the bottom the probe was getting trapped under the yeast giving me a low reading. Pulled the probe up a bit into the main wash and voila! temp is now reading 30 which is what I had the heaters set to.

So the lesson I learn't was to only have enough temp probe cord in the fermenter so it can't reach the bottom of the fermenter :handgestures-thumbupleft:

It is amazing the different changes in the fermenter temperature at different heights with the probe, I usely sit mine about 1/2 way into the wort gives good enough indication of temp. :handgestures-thumbupleft:

The problem was that the probe was under the yeast cake so it must have been insulated by the cake so it wasn't reading the wash temp. Half is where I will be aiming for now ;-)

I had just assumed the probe sorted floated around a bit in there :oops:

Thanks Sam ....been thinking about getting one of these controllers for my fermenters ...all info is gold when it comes to doing it :obscene-drinkingcheers:

I place my STC probe outside the fermenter against the side, then put a cut up chunk of armaflex against it to insulate it from ambient temps, then strap that down with a belt
I know it's not 100% accurate, but it's within 1 or 2 degrees so it's good enough for most things

sp0rk wrote:I place my STC probe outside the fermenter against the side, then put a cut up chunk of armaflex against it to insulate it from ambient temps, then strap that down with a belt
I know it's not 100% accurate, but it's within 1 or 2 degrees so it's good enough for most things

Yeah that's what I do in my ferment fridge for my beers but my 60's sit on the bench in the outside laundry and it gets cold as hell, also it is easier to just chuck them in :handgestures-thumbupleft:

Time to change over to a Lager yeast...9c - 15c suits ambient on most rooms/sheds, no heating needed.

1st gen takes 4 weeks but re using for gens 2 -4 they ferment in under 2 weeks.


http://www.brewcellar.com.au/beerrange/pc/viewCategories.asp?idCategory=34

I use the premium lager yeast as it settles out best.

bt1