Fridge

[ashbyp]

Yes you can.

You need to ferment at about 12C and lager (store cold) at about 2C.

So - you ferment outside of the fridge, you just need to try and keep the fermenter around 12C. Standing the fermenting bucket in a tray of cold water helps keep temps down.

Then, when it's fermented, transfer the beer off the crap at the bottom of the fermenter, into another container (another bucket will do, demijohn is better) and stick that in the fridge you have. Turn the fridge right down.
Leave for a few weeks and that's it.

[ashbyp]

Ah ok - cost mainly then, rather than the ATC800 being functionally better in some way. Cheers.

[steve_flack]

The ATC-800 can both heat and cool as it has two outputs - making it easier to maintain a fixed temperature throughout the day and night. The Ranco can do both but IIRC it only has one output so you must decide whether you want to heat or cool beforehand. This could mean changing the settings if your brewing area is hot during the day and cooler at night....like a garage.

[richard_senior]

Going to ask again can you make lager with just an ordinary fridge/ chiller or is it a must to get a ATC.Dont want to waste any money on something i dont know nothing about my mate has just bought a SAMSUNG bottle fridge [£225] from comet but i think he might struggle to get a keg inside of it. Cheers

[EDIT] From what the other people are saying, it'll probably be ok as long as you can fit your fermentation bucket in it. If push comes to shove, just do your primary fermentation somewhere cold and dark, and then transfer it to a clean fermentation bucket and stick it in the fridge set as cold as it'll go.

I don't bother with the second FV. I just bottle the lager after primary, stick it in the fridge and forget about it. I'm sure there are good reasons why this is bad

[ashbyp]

The ATC-800 can both heat and cool as it has two outputs - making it easier to maintain a fixed temperature throughout the day and night. The Ranco can do both but IIRC it only has one output so you must decide whether you want to heat or cool beforehand. This could mean changing the settings if your brewing area is hot during the day and cooler at night....like a garage.

The ranco i bought recently has two outputs. I have one linked to the fridge and one to the heater. No manual intervention is needed. I guess they have updated their models.

[ashbyp]

By the way, the one the hop and grape have on their website just has the single output, but they also stock the dual output version too.

[ashbyp]

Reading the description on the H&G website it appears you need a different probe if you want to put it in the fermenter. Being designed for an aquarium the atc800 probe can go either in the fridge or directly into the beer which should give you better control. It's the only way you could control a flash chiller with immersion chiller.

Yeah - I was a bit confused by that. So I have the probe taped to the side of the FV which I guess isn't as good.

[subsub]

I use an ATC 300 for my ales and an RS thermostat in my fridge for lagering

[skinfull]

Just bought an ATC 800 can anyone tell me how to connect it to the fridge and tubular heater any help would be appreciated.

[stevezx7r]

Bit late but here goes. I got an underbench fridge/freezer from freecycle about a year ago - the sort that has a small ice box at the top. I've removed two screws from the ice box and bent it down so it now runs from the top left to the bottom left. The fridge can be set using it's own thermostat at anything from -5 to ambient temps and I can get either one barrel or one fv in it. The only reason I haven't done a "proper" lager is due to the fact that I don't have a cornie so can't get the pressure required to make a real lager but for lagering purposes it would work fine - no atc units needed