Taming the freezer beast

So, twice now the freezer went so cold it froze my lager and the rest of the contents.  Both times were due to communication errors between the laptop and the power strip.  I wouldn't have noticed one of them if I hadn't been in the garage when some soda pop cans in the freezer started exploding from the pressure.  If they hadn't exploded while I was around I would have never known my lager was turning into ice beer.

There are a few disaster scenarios I can think of:

 * Communication to the power strip dies again.  I've now created a script in the laptop which monitors the power strip connection and alerts me if there are problems.

 * Laptop dies while the heat or freezer is on.  Since the laptop is dead it can't alert me to the problem, and can't control the power strip to turn off the devices.  I've set up a remote monitoring service, and a dead-man's script on the laptop to text my cell phone when this happens.  When the laptop stops responding, the remote monitoring service alerts me.
 * Freezer or heater stops working.  The laptop will now alert me if the temperature goes way above or below the desired threshold.

Converting a deep freeze to a fermentation chamber.

I purchased a used deep freeze from craigslist, and it's now sitting in the garage.  The whole idea is to convert this thing into a primary fermentation chamber for lagering.  However, I don't want to buy one of those expensive temperature controller devices at the local homebrew shop.  I'm going to do this with an old no-longer-used laptop, an unused 8 outlet network managed power strip, linux, and a usb attached thermometer.  This should be fun!

(The new freezer)

I've already plugged the fridge into the power strip and determined both still work.  I've also mounted the power strip vertically on the garage wall to save space.

(Wall mounted power strip)

Now I just need to figure out how I'm going to get the temperature sensor inside the freezer without drilling holes or ruining the seal.  I'm in the middle of modifying a script I found online to activate/deactivate the freezer's power outlet.  I'd like it to be versatile enough to also handle the outlet for my future Herbie The Lovebug kegerator.

(Future Herbie keggerator.  Needs paint)

They would have to run from the same circuit as my garage door opener, so I need the logic to be smart enough to keep only one fridge/freezer running at a time.  If both of them run, I risk tripping a breaker.  Especially if they're both running when I open the garage.


I decided not to run both fridges for now, so I've only plugged in the freezer.  The freezer cycles on for 8 minutes at a time to reach the low end of my target temp, then cycles off for 50 minutes (at least at night, we'll see how it does in the day).  Not too terrible, really.  I'm planning to add graphs, and a web interface soon (since I can, ya' know?)  I look forward to checking on the fermentation temperature from work.  If I had a webcam that would be even better... but it won't be all that useful without a light in the freezer, and I don't want to add any light or heat to the fermentation process.  Maybe a night vision webcam is in order?!  I wonder if infrared light has the same skunk effect on beer as normal lights.

I've thrown my first batch in the freezer (The "Mexican Cerveza" kit from Beer Nut.)  and hopefully it all turns out alright.  Wish me luck!