Swamp fermentation chiller question...

ok brewing a pale ale tonight. room temp in here is usually like 72f. i have a big thing to use to swamp chill the fermenter keeping in the water with some frozen bottles to try to keep the temp at like 63f (hopefully). now my question is...do i keep it in the ghetto chiller the entire time it's fermenting? or just like 3 days? please help me out i'm going to brew this in a few hours. also the only thing i have to gauge the temp is my sick on thermometer on my 6 1/2 gal glass carboy. this is also the first time i will be using star san instead of bleach. please help!

It's most important to control your fermentation temp during the first few days, but it won't hurt it to hold it at a low temp for longer. If it's too hard to maintain your swamp cooler, it would probably be alright to take it out on day 4 or five if the fermentation has slowed.

Starsan instead of bleach? Where are you using bleach in a swamp cooler application?

I just tried using a swamp cooler on my last brew. It's been sitting in there for two days now with a thermometer in the water and a t-shirt that has wicked up to the top of my fermenting bucket. Even without any ice in the bucket, I've dropped the temperature to ~62 in a room that sits at 65. Definitely give it a try!

phidelt844 said:

Starsan instead of bleach? Where are you using bleach in a swamp cooler application?

I just tried using a swamp cooler on my last brew. It's been sitting in there for two days now with a thermometer in the water and a t-shirt that has wicked up to the top of my fermenting bucket. Even without any ice in the bucket, I've dropped the temperature to ~62 in a room that sits at 65. Definitely give it a try!

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no i mean i'm using star san instead of bleach to sanitize my equipment. i was using bleach to sanitize the fermenter and other stuff.

I leave my fermenter in the swamp cooler the whole time. I mean, why not? It's easy, and even if I don't change out the water bottles any more, the increased thermal mass keeps the temperatures more stable. It seems like it would be harder to take the fermenter out, dripping wet, and dry it off then it would be to just leave it in the water bath the full 10 days to two weeks.

YooperBrew said:

I leave my fermenter in the swamp cooler the whole time. I mean, why not? It's easy, and even if I don't change out the water bottles any more, the increased thermal mass keeps the temperatures more stable. It seems like it would be harder to take the fermenter out, dripping wet, and dry it off then it would be to just leave it in the water bath the full 10 days to two weeks.

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Okay, good point. I think I will do that

YooperBrew said:

I leave my fermenter in the swamp cooler the whole time. I mean, why not?

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Yep. I left my holiday beer in the water bath for a whole month. Water didn't even get gross... although that probably says more about the chlorination level of my tap water than anything else.

Yeah I'm going to leave it in there 3 weeks. And I'm going to be completely obsessive about the temp. What do you think I should keep it at on the stick on therm on the outside of the fermenter? 63f? Steeping the grains as we speak