Fermentation fridge fans?

[fury_tea]

Do you use them??

I've recently got myself a new fermentation fridge set up in my shed, and because it's new, I can't stop looking at it or thinking about it. My Inkbird is taped to the FV with insulation.

Each time I went in to look at the temp, the fridge or heater seemed to be on which suggested to me that it was swinging in temp. I filled the currently unused top part of the fridge with 'stuff' (polystyrene and an FV) to fill the dead space. This seemed to help, but I wanted more. I had a couple of usb fans (2 fans connected to a single usb) so put those in there, one facing up, one facing down to create airflow and even the temp in the fridge. This eased my thoughts as every time I went to look the temp was 0.1-0.2 from the target i.e. no fridge or heater on.

Then I started to doubt myself. Is it a complete waste of energy having fans blowing 24/7? Could I reduce the amount of time the fans were on?

I thought about putting them into the heater or cooler sockets of the inkbird (both would be nice), but this would mean when nothing is happening, nothing is happening and so the air would stratify, so I remembered we have one of those timers for cycling lamps on and off when you are on holiday to make it look like you are in. You can set ours at 20 minute intervals so I have set it to come on and off every 20 minutes.

I've looked at it about 10 times since yesterday and it has been exactly on my target temp 7 out of those 10 times, or very close. Now I'm not suggesting it's magic (also fermentation has slowed so it is probably creating less heat itself), and it's probably confirmation bias or coincidence but it seems to be working pretty well.

Now I'm thinking I could create a repeat cycle timer with an arduino to cycle the fans on and off once every 3 or 4 minutes for a minute at a time, It would probably use a lot less energy but keep the air moving around.

This is a lot of overthinking, I know, but the Mrs is getting bored of it so I thought I would offload to you guys.

Thanks for listening, I think I'd better drink another beer and relax. Cheers.

 

[BarnBrian]

The fans will be such low consumption leaving them running will cost virtually nothing. I wouldn’t over think this too much.

 

[Martin-68]

Hi
I also set up a fermentation fridge recently so can understand your constant need to check it & worry about it , mine is located in the garage and have limited myself to checking it once a day ,self restraint is required here,
I have an inkbird gaffa taped to the side of my FV my target temp is 19 deg with an offset of 0.5 deg in both cooling and heating
This will maintain a temp of 18 - 20 degrees the heater and fridge are not on that often
One thought is the fridge setting itself I have mine set at about 50% so it’s a gentle gradual cool
Good luck

 

[Brew_DD2]

Maybe adjust your inkbird so that your target margins are wider?

 

[RichK]

How about build in a bigger delay before the fridge switches on? Think I have mine set to 10 mins. A decent piece of insulation over the probe will help. You want to try & be measuring the fluid temperature, not the air temperature which will fluctuate more rapidly.

 

[BarnBrian]

Hi
I also set up a fermentation fridge recently so can understand your constant need to check it & worry about it , mine is located in the garage and have limited myself to checking it once a day ,self restraint is required here,
I have an inkbird gaffa taped to the side of my FV my target temp is 19 deg with an offset of 0.5 deg in both cooling and heating
This will maintain a temp of 18 - 20 degrees the heater and fridge are not on that often
One thought is the fridge setting itself I have mine set at about 50% so it’s a gentle gradual cool
Good luck

I'm sure setting the fridge to 50% makes no difference. The cooling coils themselves don't supply variable degrees of heat.