The Auswine Forum

Hello,

For those of you with temperature controlled cellars; IÂ’m interested in how you monitor temperature or if you are using commercial facilities, what data they provide to you.

First, some background. I have just completed installation of a cooling unit in a well-insulated, below ground room (~20 cubic m). I hired a refrigeration engineer to design the system and to install it (~$3K plus some fixtures and insulation). I bought a HOBO (www.onsetcomp.com) logger that records air temperature and relative humidity. I initially used the logger to sample every minute or so, to allow me to work out when the unit was on an what running costs were going to be. That job done, I continue to collect readings every five minutes (just because I like playing with big data sets) and have been puzzling over the performance of my system.

Daily median air temperature is 16.1 deg. C with a 95% probability of being between 14.5 and 16.8 deg. C. I canÂ’t log temperature in bottles but check it manually and it sits on 16.1 (plus or minus 0.1 degree) which seams reasonable to me. IÂ’ve calibrated all my gear and am happy that it is accurate to less than 0.1 degree.

This is so much better than the passive system from before that I know I am much better off. I am really just curious about other peopleÂ’s systems and what the commercial folksÂ’ performance is like. Any comments?

Cheers,

Doug

If I was in a commercial facility I'd be installing my own sensory device rather than rely on anything they may provide. Smallish cost compared to what you pay and how valuable your wine is.

I had my wine with Millers for a while in a private Bin. I just used a min/max thermometer so it records the maximum temperature and the minimum temperature as well as displaying the current temperature. It really didn't fluctuate that much so I wasn't worried.

I was initally concerned about a power loss but the whole place was purpose built and had quite good insulation.

In my own cellar, the thermostat runs off the temperature of the wine, not the ambiant temp. Over the course of a day, it really doesn't vary that much - max 1 degree and usually not even that unless I'm in there with the lights on for any extended period and then it's more the ambiant temp that the bottle temp anyway. It takes quite a bit of time to heat up or cool down that mass of wine. I don't get that worried about it to be honest.

If any of you want temperature loggers etc. I used to use loggers from Hastings Data Loggers. They work very well and are reasonably priced.
MM.

I use a Winland DPM-4 in my cellar which is basically an alarm panel with four zones, two for temp, two for humidity. Each zone has relay contacts, so I can control equipment driven from setpoints (high and low).

I also use a min/max style unit.

But the best tool I have is a USB data logger from RS-components, costs about $180.