Call me crazy..but not shirley !

Gents,
Background - I live in a 115yo house with dirt floors in the basement.
Anyone bury their fermentation carboys to maintain temps ? Right now it averages about 84F in my place during the day (Radiator Heat/Window AC units) as I don't keep the AC on during the day. In the basement, it stays about 77F or so; which is abit on the warm side. I was looking at building a fermentation box; but then the brew gods smiled upon me and granted me this idea: the ground stays quite a bit cooler. I am going to bury a carboy full of water and take some temp readings....Just wondering if anyone else has tried this before ? If nothing more, it will be pretty damn constant.

Way too much of a pain in the ass, if you ask me. I'd be worried about sloshing and possibly breaking the thing when you're unearthing it. IIWY, I'd get a big rigid plastic tub (like the kind they keep horse feed in, or that frat boys use to put their kegs into---the ones with the rope handles). Put a few 2L pepsi bottles filled with water into the freezer until they're frozen. Put the carboy in the tub, fill it 2/3 with water, then put a few of the frozen bottles in there. It'll chill it down considerably...and if you need to colder, just add more bottles. And always keep a rotation in your freezer so that when one melts completely, you can rotate it out with a fresh one. Make sure your fermometer (if you have one, which you should) doesn't get submerged, as they don't like that.

That's the cheap route.

The other option is to get a window AC unit for the basement and keep it running.

But burying them seems, to me, alot of hassle...and dangerous. Plus, you know...if you start excavating your basement, you're almost sure to dig up some injun graves, and the last thing you need are injun haints haintin your place. That sucks. Take it from me.

I imagine it'll work for temp control, but I'd be concerned about sanitation. You might also have trouble if you need a blow off tube, you'd need to make sure the fluid level of sanitizer is lower than the end of the hose into the fermenter.

Try a water bath first and see what kind of results you get. If you pick up an indoor/outdoor digital thermometer you can check the ambient temp, fermenter temp, and also record high and low temps so you know what's happening with your ferment.

Shirley you can't be serious.



























Sorry, couldn't help it

Hrmm. Well there ya have it folks, the injun grave thingie scared me off.

Steve-H said:

Hrmm. Well there ya have it folks, the injun grave thingie scared me off.

Click to expand...

Smart man...

Remember what happened to Peter Griffin?

Actually there is a guy on the B3 board that dug a hole for his fermenter and did exactly what you are thinking. It works for him just fine.

Gents,
I think the main benefit here would be consistent temps. What I should do is dig my hole, and like it with some brick, then make an insulated lid. I believe the injuns around here did just this (with mud though; not bricks)....So perhaps they would forgive me, in my pittance of an attempt to nod to their technology ?
Either way, I'll give it a shot and report my temp findings...

Worse comes to worse, I would have an excellent place for the neighbor's chiwawa....

My first thought was to dig it out so that you could put some steps in it (lifting and setting down a full carboy into a hole = no fun). Dig down maybe four feet, and area maybe what, eight feet long, four feet wide? Put down some gravel and lay a concrete pad four or five inches thick, then line the walls with cinder blocks. Put in some steps and make some kind of cover for the top. You could walk down the steps and line the carboys up the side, keep them covered and out of the light. If you've got a conrete pad and it's lined with cinder blocks, it shouldn't be any dirtier than the rest of the basement.

Kind of a big project, but what could be cooler than a BEER CAVE!

Quick, to the beer cave!!

Bird...if he dug a big hole like that, I'd guess that the benefits of digging into the earth would be reduced immensely due to the increased circulation of air. If the rest of his basement is in the mid 80's, I'd guess that even a small hole would provide very little difference.

And it wouldn't be a beer cave as much as it would be a beer...hole.

Steve, maybe you should dig a test hole and put a thermometer down there to see how cold it is.

Careful not to dig it too big or your SWMBO might get a better idea of what to bury in that hole. :cross:

How would I explain that to a potential buyer down the road though ?

"Victorian with real charm ! 12' ceilings, 8' windows, hardwood floors through out. 3/4 basement with step down beer cave...."

Man, wish I had a beer cave!


Along the same lines...sorta.

Couldn't you bury the rubbermaid tub in the ground then use the ice/water bath?

Deffinatly not as cool as the beer cave though


Maybe an window unit into the beer cave?

Say it's a wine celler

Evan! said:

Bird...if he dug a big hole like that, I'd guess that the benefits of digging into the earth would be reduced immensely due to the increased circulation of air. If the rest of his basement is in the mid 80's, I'd guess that even a small hole would provide very little difference.

And it wouldn't be a beer cave as much as it would be a beer...hole.

Steve, maybe you should dig a test hole and put a thermometer down there to see how cold it is.

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There would still be cool earth on five sides, though. He'd need some kind of insulated cover (I'm thiniing some kind of hindged door make of plywood sanwiching some insulation board), but I think it would help.

Hell, YOU would need a twenty-by-twenty beer cave, ten feet high, to store all of your backstock!

the_bird said:

There would still be cool earth on five sides, though. He'd need some kind of insulated cover (I'm thiniing some kind of hindged door make of plywood sanwiching some insulation board), but I think it would help.

Hell, YOU would need a twenty-by-twenty beer cave, ten feet high, to store all of your backstock!

Click to expand...

Oh, yeah, if you put a cover on it, it'd be better off...but I still doubt it'd be 15 degrees cooler than the rest of the basement, which is what you'd need to get a fermenting carboy down to ale temps.

Damn, if I had a beer cave...that'd rock.

Really, I promise, I'm getting into kegging soon!

A really simple solution to the fermentation temperature problem.

Heavy duty cardboard box a little larger than your carboy. A couple bottles of ice, with a couple more on standby. Cover it with a heavy blanket/sleeping bag if you really want to insulate it. Swap out the ice once a day or so.

If your really want to get creative, line with some thin styrofoam.

I have used a similar set-up everytime I brew, it works.

The hole doesn't have to be much bigger than the fermenter(s). You could rig a simple block & tackle to lift them out by making the floor out of a sheet of marine plywood that is well varnished. I know the temperatures 2 feet down around here are about 55F. If it wasn't so wet in the winter, I'd build a beer cave.

[I've lived in two houses like that, but wasn't brewing. The one in Oakland had been barged over from S.F. after the 1906 quake.]