ZBrewMan

Recipes 

Well, I have a couple wonderful batches of banana kerosene in my two primaries. Just guessing, though. Very unusual heat wave struck cali central coast and toasted my beer! Been 74-78 ambient even with fans and closed shades; Fermometer reading is off the charts. If I had to guess, I would say that my beer has been fermenting at 80-85 degrees. Uggh!

Porter-safale S-04
Stout-safale S-05

It's very frustrating after all the work on brew day... so I realize that I need some serious temp control. I want something that will hold two primary 6.5g carboys and will also look fairly nice in my kitchen.

I was thinking about the following chest freezer:
GE 7.0 Cu. Ft. Chest Freezer - FCM7SUWW at The Home Depot

And a digital temperature controller. Could someone point me to a good one?

Good idea? Bad Idea? Got a better idea? I'd love to hear it!

slomo

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I dont have any better ideas, but man that heat did come out of no where. Lucky for me i was putting my fermentors in a crawl space under my house. Sorry to hear about yours good luck with it though.

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Secondary:
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Denny's Evil Concoctions

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I can't help you with the controller. Someone on here will though, it's come up enough times. Try a search?

As for your brews, at least a porter and stout will not be as overly effected by the fruity esters.

How many days were they fermenting before the heat hit?

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BrewN00b

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I hear ya. Same thing happened to me last week or so with my Banana IPA. I'm hoping some cooler temps and a few extra weeks in the primary will help clarify it out.

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Primary Fermenter: English Mild

Primary Fermenter: English ESB

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rsmith179

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Might want to just try a swamp bucket in place of the freezer. Leave the use of a freezer for lagering and dispensing if you keg.

Really easy to make a swap bucket. Just get a container large enough for your primary to go into, like a Rubbermaid box. Put the primary in there and then fill it about 1/2 way with water. You can then drape a towel around your primary and lay the ends of the towel in the water. This will wick up the water in the container. Finally, point a fan at the primary to help evaporate the water from the towel. The evaporation will provide cooling for the primary and the whole setup shouldn't cost you more than $5-10.

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Chad

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Another vote for the swamp cooler. I have an old restaurant bus tub that my fermenter fits in, but a Rubbermaid container or the like is readily available for very little money. Put your primary in it, fill it up with water and swap out frozen water bottles on a regular basis. I can maintain a steady 63-64° even in the dead of summer that way.

Obviously if you have the money and inclination, go for the freezer, but this works well as an interim measure.

Chad

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Whiskey

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Or you can go the pretty cheap Son of fermentation route. I just built one for $35, between sales and having a few of the components on hand. A swamp coooler with a few frozen bottles of water works very well also.

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Primary(2): dust...
Secondary: dust...
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viking999

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Just to clarify, you didn't taste it, you're just assuming it must be farked?

What stage of fermentation were these beers in? Were they still churning like mad when the heat wave struck? Or had it subsided some?

Also, I second the water tub idea if you're concerned about expense or space. Walmart sells these rope handled tubs for $8 that are the perfect size for a fermenter and some frozen water bottles.

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Primary: Maris Otter/EKG SMaSH

Bottle: Deizbeutzervet Dunkelweizen
Keg: Independence Day Strawberry Blonde
Keg: Munich/Mt. Hood SMaSH

Hophazard

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Man, no kidding. Wish we would have had some notice about that beforehand. Fortunately, both of my current batches are in secondaries and fermentation should be complete so I'm hoping they aren't as affected by the temp increase.

If you find yourself in a pinch and don't have a swamp cooler or fermentation chamber handy, throw them in the tub filled with cold water (and perhaps some ice). It will definitely keep them cooler for a while, at least until you can get something more permenant.

ZBrewMan

Recipes 

I did search a little, but I didn't find anything that would work specifically with a chest freezer. I'll take another search. Thanks.

They were fermenting one full day before the heat hit. The porter with the S-04 went crazy and I was glad I had a blow-off tube.

It's Now day 3.5 and there is no observable bubbles coming into the blow-off container.

Nope... I guess I was being a little dramatic. At 86 degrees during peak fermentation I would be very (pleasantly) surprised if there weren't some major off flavors
I'm hoping the same thing. I'm definitely going to leave it on the yeast cake longer.

Seems like most people agree with you. I've thought about the swamp bucket as well as the Son of Fermentation chamber. These are definitely good ideas. I have a couple reasons why I was leaning towards a freezer. I have a SS bench in my kitchen that this freezer would fit nicely under. No real loss of space. Also, it would look much less cluttered/messy if I just had one freezer instead of a couple of swamp buckets.

I'm also thinking about presentation value for those (too rare) occurrences when a lady comes to visit. With the freezer/controller setup I can be proud and say: "Hey baby, wanna come check out my fermentation chamber?"

Worth a shot at least!

Thanks all!