pcolson

Recipes 

awesome thank you i dont have a basement but im sure the ice thing should work! and the shirt thing

petrolero

Recipes 

When I lived in Houston, which was hot and humid, I kept my brew in a closet (no A/C). We had no floor vents in that place so I couldn't set it by a vent as I do now (works great).

So what I did was set the fermenter (carboy) in a shallow tray of water, maybe 4 inches deep, put an old t-shirt over the carboy so that the t-shirt dipped into the water at the bottom, and then turned a fan on it. Sometimes I'd come in and wet the shirt if it wasn't wicking the way I liked or if it wasn't wicking fast enough to keep up with the fan speed.

The evaporation was good enough to get my temps down into the upper 60's from the low to mid 70's. Of course with Houston's hard water, that t-shirt got pretty crusty over time.

If your humidity is super high indoors then obviously this trick won't work as well. But if you have A/C then that reduces your indoor relative humidity enough that this should get you a couple extra degrees.

Goofy but effective.

Edit to add: I see moonpile recommends the shirt thing too. Maybe not so goofy after all.

Good luck!

pcolson

Recipes 

i did it i got my old ACU top from the army and froze ice packs and put them in the pockets working great so far! got it right where i want it! sweet homebrew mmm

soontobepcv

Recipes 

Similar to eating what's local and in season, I go with the seasonal swings of temperature in my house to determine the brew schedule. During the summer the upstairs is 80+ degrees, so I'll brew a saison, or maybe a belgian in the 75-78 degree basement. In the winter, the cooler basement temps lend themselves to ales that demand "cleaner" flavor profiles.

BoxofRain

Recipes 

Here's a silly question for everyone:

What are the different ways to gauge the temperature of the fermenter. I got this crappy plastic strip thermometer from this beginner kit but it's a pain in the neck to use. I was thinking about getting a digital thermometer with it's sensor on a long wire and dropping the sensor into the fermenter. But I'm super worried about contaminating my first batch. Advice?

s3n8

Recipes 

stick the strip thermometer on the fermenter. Near the top.

I put mine so 5.5 Gallons is at the top of the thermo.

Works well enough for most people on here I think.

Texas_Brew

Recipes 

I live in Houston and my wife tends to keep the room temperature between 75-80 in the winter i don't have a thermometer to check the garage temps and here in Houston the outside can drastically change anywhere from 82 - 49 (highs and lows from current 10 day forecast) looks like ill have to periodically check up on this at least twice a day and maybe have to move my brew around the house from time to time i will try some of your suggestions ! thank you for your help guys.

Texas_Brew

Recipes 

i never used a lot of thermometers and tried to Google it but didn't have any luck (user error im shore lol) is there a thermometer collects data like the high and low temps threw the day? this way i can get a good idea of were temps stay threw the day in certain areas and i wont have to worry too much wile at work

ScrewyBrewer

Recipes 

I've used all three methods shown below and they all will do the job if you're diligent with swapping out shirts and/or water bottles..

Good: Keep Tee shirts wet and change them ofter to prevent mold growth


Better: Keep a close eye on the temperature and swap out frozen water bottles as needed


Best: The larger the volume of air and liquid the smaller the temperature swings.

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