scutiger

Recipes 

Being down here in South Carolina, most of my brewing takes place over the summer when we keep our house around 76-78 F. I've let my beers ferment upwards of 82 F and they still taste good. My latest trick involves sitting my fermenters on some raised planks over a central air vent that blows out in the upper 50s when the AC's on. Doing that keeps the temp down around 72 F, which is the best I can do for now. I just don't worry about the temps too much, it is what it is, and I'm still making beer that I like.

onthekeg

Recipes 

Its too darn hot for me to brew these days. Upper 90's with high humidity as well. If there was a breeze it wouldn't be so bad, but there is nothing. I'm in the basement racking beer and sipping out of the keezer...

jagec

Recipes 

I brew in my kitchen, so I can brew year-round. AC has to work a bit harder on brew day, though, and the kitchen can get pretty warm as the boil progresses.

The biggest problem is the tap water temperature, though. These days I'm just cooling the wort to 80 degrees, pitching, and then letting the fermenter cool down more in the basement.

OldWorld

Recipes 

Until you get your temperature situation under control I highly suggest brewing with a Saison yeast...90 degrees is still fine. Good luck.

bobz32

Recipes 

As others said, until you find a good system to maintain lower fermentation temps, have at the belgian yeasts! Make some lovely saisons too. Mmmm .... what a delicious dilemma you have!

krazydave

Recipes 

Has anyone realized yet that this thread is from 2007?
Just sayin'

DaytonaBigMac

Recipes 

Yup. Did a search and found the subject. Considering that the art of brewing beer is hundreds of years old, I'm guessing that a 5-year-old thread is probably still relevant. Not exactly a high-tech and high-velocity field of study

skullface1818

Recipes 

I cant say IVe done this, but Where It up to me I wouldn't fiddle around with a chest freezer. Too hard ot load into and too hard to load out.

If I had access to a smaller room (larger than a closet, but still pretty small) Id just install a 2ed smaller cheaper AC unit to keep its temperature proper for ales.

Possibly add some extra insulation over the walls, move a bunch of your home brewing stuff into the room, and your set. Would probably be cheaper than keeping your ac on at 70 all the time for your entire house (which in Florida, is a hard temperature to get at, trust me, and will cost a bundle to keep your whole place at that temperature), and should work out just fine.

I heard of some monks in Hawaii for their brewery, and it worked out just fine for them. and their temperature is far higher than what you will be facing.

I'm pretty sure you can pick up a small AC unit that can get the job done from Home Depo for about 100$

C-Rider

Recipes 

I use a 7.1 cu. ft. freezer from Sam's Club Works great w/a Johnstons controller. Oh yea, I'm in Hawai`i, we are farther south, but it rarely gets over 95 in the sun at my house. In the shade under the house maybe 85 on a HOT day.

__________________
Kaiser Ridge Brewing
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Primary: Red Top Ale (Irish Red)
Bottle conditioning: Baltic Porter
Bottled in the refer: Munich Malt German IPA; Kaiser Imperial German IPA; Pilsner Malt German IPA; Old Glory American Stout

sirgeoph

Recipes 

Brewing in New Orleans summers isn't so easy either. Brewed this past weekend. I use an immersion chiller to cool my wort, but it leveled out around 84*. Ground water is about 75*, but the ambient temp in the brew house (read: shed) goes around 90*+ (gotta keep the doors open to run the hose in and out, though the room is insulated and there's a window unit). I use a minifridge with a temp controller for fermentation, so I stuck the brew pot in there at a real low temp to bring it down another 10*.

Then, once cooled, siphoned into carboy and brought the fridge up to about 68* for fermentation. Works well. Maybe not the best method, but so far so good.