400d

Recipes 

ok, soon I will make my first batch of pale ale. the recommended fermentation temperature for the yeast that I'm using is from 18-20 degrees celcius (64 - 68 F)

the problem is that I have only one place at home where I can keep my fermentor, and the temperature there varies during the day (during night it's around 15 degrees celsius, and during the day it raises up to 22 degrres celsius)

how can I solve this problem?

what would happen if I just leave it fermenting in such conditions? am I going to ruin all my work, or might I get a fine beer?

elmetal

Recipes 

well. being that water holds temperature much longer than air, I would suggest getting a cooler, putting it in that special spot.

put your fermentor in the cooler, fill with 19 degree water, soak a shirt in that 19 degree water, put it over your fermentor (assuming it's a carboy or better bottle) and let it sit there.

the water should reach 20 to maybe 21 during the day and it should maybe reach 17 at night. it should even out the temperature a bit more. use a fermometer, because if fermentation picks up nicely, temperatures should rise (though at 64-68 I don't think fermentation would be rolling)

the shirt would be kind of like a wick inserted in the water, hopefully covering the carboy in that same water.
just a thought.

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shortyjacobs

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+1 to what elmetal said. A cooler or any plastic container will work fine. You just need something that will hold a 15+ litres of water + your fermenter. Put a wet t-shirt over the fermenter and into the water. A fan blowing on the wet t-shirt will drop the temps a bit more even.

weirdboy

Recipes 

I use a cooler similar to the method described above, but use frozen water bottles to control the temperatures a little better instead of relying on a t-shirt. I have done the t-shirt thing in the past and it worked OK, but did not give me the degree of control I wanted when the ambient temperature here rises to 90+ F sometimes.

Schnitzengiggle

Recipes 

+1 picnic cooler filled with water and frozen water bottles to keep temps down. I could probably lager in my 70 qt COleman Xtreme cooler with frozen bottle swaps twice a day, but unfortunately I am not a big fan of the lagers.

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ChshreCat

Recipes 

I do the bin of water as well. No t-shirt or fan and I put in an ice bottle (or 2 or three depending on how warm the ambient temp is) during the day to keep the wort around what the nighttime temp will be without ice bottles. Keeps it cool and fairly stable.

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