Apartment ferm temps

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primalyeti

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Hello everyone

So I moved to a new place at the beginning of september and I'm finally ready to brew my first batch in the new place. I placed a couple of glasses around the house in acceptable fermentation spots (where I can let the carboys sit and do their thing) and the lower temp I managed to get was 70-71 in the sump pump closet.

I know thats still within acceptable ferm temps for most yeasts (65-72), but I was wondering if anyone has any ideas how I can cool off the room, so it can sit at around 67-68. It might not be an issue when I hit the winter months, but we're not quite there yet.

Cheers!
 
Swamp cooler. If you dont know what that is just do a search on here or google. Basically the carboy sits in cooled water and keeps the temp down. If I really wanna do a lager before winter is here I will use White Labs San Fran Lager yeast. Needs cooler temp but not as cold as lagering temps, it works great for me.
 
70/71 ambient is likely too warm. Fermentation is exothermic and your beer will get several degrees warmer than that during the active stages of fermentation. It depends on what yeast you're using, but for almost all, you'll end up at least a few degrees too warm I would think.

A lot of people here either use a swamp cooler or a simple water bath. Swamp coolers rely on evaporation to keep temps down (and from the reading I've done, they can work extremely well). As for a water bath, that's what I use. Input my carboy in a big bucket with some cold water (with a small amount of Star San in it, others use bleach, to Prevent nasties in the water), and switch out frozen water bottles to keep the temp low. Since your room is at about 70, you'd be able to stop switching out the ice once active fermentation is done, so it'd only be for 3-5 days.
 
Thank you KepowOb for making the distinction between ‘swamp cooler’ and ‘simple water bath’. To most people on the forum a ‘swamp cooler’ is anything using a water tub.

A small caution, swamp coolers need low humidity to work. I tried this in an upstairs Dallas apartment, relentlessly spraying the t-shirt with a fan on it and it stayed room temperature.

Thinking back on it, I guess room temperature is a plus. Without the fan it would have been warmer. Also the tub will help average the day/night temperatures.
 
Thank you KepowOb for making the distinction between ‘swamp cooler’ and ‘simple water bath’. To most people on the forum a ‘swamp cooler’ is anything using a water tub.

A small caution, swamp coolers need low humidity to work. I tried this in an upstairs Dallas apartment, relentlessly spraying the t-shirt with a fan on it and it stayed room temperature.

Thinking back on it, I guess room temperature is a plus. Without the fan it would have been warmer. Also the tub will help average the day/night temperatures.

Not really. A Rubbermaid tote filled with water and ice works great
 
I live in a 3rd floor apt. in VA, so the Summers (or even the Fall months), my coldest room moves between 70 and 75 degrees. My swamp cooler is a 20 gallon trash can that I can keep between 68-70 degrees. I ferment everything at this temperature. It DOES mean that there are certain yeasts/styles that I can't use/brew, but that's something to look forward to down the road :)
 
I'm in Houston on a top floor apartment. This summer my choices were dump a couple hundred dollars into the electric bill to keep it in standard ale range or brew batches dominated by yeast flavors. My A/C was set to 75-80 and I made some pretty awesome Saisons, a dubbel, and started some sours that are tasting great.

If you want to brew really high gravity stuff or something with no yeast character you definitely need those lower temps, but there are other options.
 
Check out Cool Brewing bags. I live on the 3rd floor of an apartment building with ambient temps around 75-80 in the summer. My beer stays between 60-65 just by swapping a frozen 2l bottle every 12+hrs.

I used to use a swamp cooler but I hated having a huge container of still water in my closet. The swamp cooler also required attention every 6-8hrs.
 
To me swamp cooler and water bath are the same thing. The only difference is what you need to do to maintain temperature. I like to ferment in the low to mid sixties for most ales. A t-shirt and fan will not cool enough so I need to use ice bottles. If you cannot do mechanical cooling, a swamp cooler/waterbath is the way to go. For space considerations the Cool Brewing bags look interesting. I used the swamp cooler until I made my fermentation chamber, minifridge, plywood, 2x4's and foam insulation.
 
Wow you guys are awesome, I posted before going to bed and waking up to all these answers is fantastic, thanks!

I think I'm going to give the water bath thing a try this weekend, just see how it goes. I want to keep researching this DIY swamp cooler a little more and then possibly build one. Figure if I freeze a 1L bottle of water and replace it every 12 hours it should be good to lower the temp a bit? I guess since ferm is exothermic I should aim to have the water in the low 60's.

I think this helps explain why I've had a few bad batches over the summer, I guess I thought my last place was cooler than it actually was!
 
I've had great success with a swamp cooler in my basement.

by swapping a frozen 2l bottle every 12+hrs.

... The swamp cooler also required attention every 6-8hrs.

Not sure why a swamp cooler would need such frequent attention. I leave a fan going and check on it every day. Much less work than frequent bottle changes, IMO.
 
Wow you guys are awesome, I posted before going to bed and waking up to all these answers is fantastic, thanks!

I think I'm going to give the water bath thing a try this weekend, just see how it goes. I want to keep researching this DIY swamp cooler a little more and then possibly build one. Figure if I freeze a 1L bottle of water and replace it every 12 hours it should be good to lower the temp a bit? I guess since ferm is exothermic I should aim to have the water in the low 60's.

I think this helps explain why I've had a few bad batches over the summer, I guess I thought my last place was cooler than it actually was!

If you can get a stick on thermometer, put that on your fermenter above the water level that's in the tub. Try to keep that temp in the low-mid 60's. That's easier to do if you chill the wort to 60*F before pitching.

Your 70-71*F room temp is way too high for most ale yeasts.
 
To me swamp cooler and water bath are the same thing. The only difference is what you need to do to maintain temperature. I like to ferment in the low to mid sixties for most ales. A t-shirt and fan will not cool enough so I need to use ice bottles. If you cannot do mechanical cooling, a swamp cooler/waterbath is the way to go. For space considerations the Cool Brewing bags look interesting. I used the swamp cooler until I made my fermentation chamber, minifridge, plywood, 2x4's and foam insulation.

Water baths and swamp coolers, as far as I understand it, pretty different. A proper swamp cooler only needs a few inches of water and relies on evaporation to cool the fermenter. A water bath, on the other hand, involves submerging a good deal of the fermenter in water using the waters temperature to help regulate that of the beer.

If you have low humidity, a swamp cooler can be insanely effective from what I've seen online (videos and articles). For me, it wouldn't come close to working either as I have pretty high humidity, so I need to use a water bath with ice, like most people seem to do.

I don't mean to be a dick about making the differentiation here at all... I know it's being a bit nitpicky... In the end, both have the same purpose... but I'm a bit like that when it comes to the definition of things, and I like trying to make sure other people know the difference as well. Not that I guess it'll really change anything either way for most people, but whatever... it also seems that I tend to ramble both when I talk and write online after I've had a few pints :cross:
 
I've had great success with a swamp cooler in my basement.

Not sure why a swamp cooler would need such frequent attention. I leave a fan going and check on it every day. Much less work than frequent bottle changes, IMO.

The simple fan and tshirt swamp cooler were insufficient so I had to rely on ice bottles. Don't underestimate the temps of a top floor apartment in the Summer.
 
Google ‘swamp cooler’. Go ahead, I’ll wait. See? No ice involved. It’s an actual thing that homebrewers have misappropriated the name, not some cutesy thing invented by us.

This particular misnomer is very persistent. My setup uses a tub mostly full of water and an immersion chiller wrapped around the carboy. The water temperature is regulated by use of a pump and a bucket in a refrigerator. All too often, if I try to describe it, people say oh, a swamp cooler. Sigh.

I call a fermentation swamp cooler ‘the wet t-shirt method’. The other method is ‘throw ice at it’ or water cooling.

To the OP I don’t think 1L/12hr will be enough at first. I recommend having some frozen ½ liter bottles handy. Obviously it depends on ambient temperature and fermentation temperature. After the big part of the fermentation is over you can let the temp drift up and 1L will be too much.

My apartment is in the low 80's and I was running one tub at 62F and another at 68F and it took 4L/12hr. Now you can see why I got the refrigerator.

Your heat load is about 1/3 of mine, so you’re close. The heat of fermentation is not a big deal, it’s spread out over 2-3 days. Most of the work is being done maintaining the temperature of the fermentor - water tub system.
 
You use a refrigerator to chill water that you pump through a immersion chiller to cool a water bath that your fermenter sits in? Why wouldn't you just use the fridge to ferment in?
 
Hmm...

If you want controlled temp, then "Son of fermentation chiller" is a good way to control temp. Cheap and reasonably easy to make. Search for it on this forum.

However, depending on the styles you want to brew, I don't think you'll have any problems with ambient temp up to 23C. This is my personal opinion, based purely on my experience and taste preferences.
I've brewed batches at reasonably stable 23C (IPA and porter) and they turned out great and were very popular with my friends (some of them are sissy-lager drinkers!). 21-22C produces great beer.
However, I am quite used to drinking scottish ales and heavy stouts and porters, so when I buy a pint of lager in a pub my first thoughts are usually (what's this? watered down piss?)

Good luck!
 
You use a refrigerator to chill water that you pump through a immersion chiller to cool a water bath that your fermenter sits in? Why wouldn't you just use the fridge to ferment in?

I can’t think of any reason I would want to do that. I tried it once. Hated it. I felt like I was guessing about the temperatures.

Water-

Faster
More efficient
tighter regulation
better heat distribution

Air-

poor heat conduction
poor specific heat
wild hysteresis to maintain fermentor temp
Temperature drops like a rock when you open the door
 
A simple temp controller would eliminate your concerns and save you some money on the energy bill. By indirectly cooling the wort you're wasting energy chilling water, pumping it into the IC, transferring energy to a water bath, and finally transferring energy to the wort. Hopefully your water bath is insulated to save some energy.

Your setup sounds like a fun build and I don't doubt that it works but don't mistake the thermal properties of water for an efficient design.
 
So I bought a rubbermaid container and 6 2L bottles of pop; drained the pop, filled with water and froze them. I'm going to brew Monday or Tuesday night (had to push brew day back :( ). I'll let you guys know how it goes!

I'd like to one day have a fridge and go about it like that, but that probably wont be for a while, due to a lack of space.
 
I had a similar issue with temps in my apartment. First I was putting it in the closet that was slightly cooler because there was sunlight facing it all day. Then I had the brilliant idea of storing it in the basement of the building, usually stays in mid 60s or less all year, and cool enough I could probably attempt to lager in dead of winter( northern Michigan)
 
My experience with the T-shirt/bath/fan was more than sufficient.

My apt was a constant 75F. My wort temp dipped as low as 66F with the fan on high. By turning the fan on low it hovered around 68. With the fan off it went to 71/72F.

The mistake a lot of people make is letting the fermenter sit in the water. It should sit slightly above the water and the t-shirt wicks the moisture up.

By far the cheapest method and I had good results
 
A simple temp controller would eliminate your concerns and save you some money on the energy bill. By indirectly cooling the wort you're wasting energy chilling water, pumping it into the IC, transferring energy to a water bath, and finally transferring energy to the wort. Hopefully your water bath is insulated to save some energy.

Your setup sounds like a fun build and I don't doubt that it works but don't mistake the thermal properties of water for an efficient design.

This discussion is off-topic, let me refer you to this.
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f163/fermentation-temp-control-cheap-432191/index2.html#post5514390

If I was cooling the bucket with air, you might be correct. This hails back to my previous point about the poor thermal conductivity of air. My system doesn't depend on air, that's why it rocks.

Actually, I'm using three controllers, one for each fermentor and one for the 'fridge.

In my system, there’s aluminum in the bucket and copper in the tub. Highly efficient. I’m cooling two fermentors with a 100 watt mini-fridge.
 
This discussion is off-topic, let me refer you to this.
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f163/fermentation-temp-control-cheap-432191/index2.html#post5514390

If I was cooling the bucket with air, you might be correct. This hails back to my previous point about the poor thermal conductivity of air. My system doesn't depend on air, that's why it rocks.

Actually, I'm using three controllers, one for each fermentor and one for the 'fridge.

In my system, there’s aluminum in the bucket and copper in the tub. Highly efficient. I’m cooling two fermentors with a 100 watt mini-fridge.

The issue is that you're focusing on the efficiency of a component and not the overall system efficiency. I don't mean to discourage you. I was just trying to offer some advice. If you're happy with what you have then there's no need for change.
 
The mistake a lot of people make is letting the fermenter sit in the water. It should sit slightly above the water and the t-shirt wicks the moisture up.

I was planning on letting 3/4 of the carboys (I ferment in 2 1 gallon carboys) sit submerged with a few 2L frozen coke bottles around them in the rubbermaid.

No?
 
I live in an apartment where space is limited so i built a wacky peltier-based temp controlled corny.
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f51/my-ugly-peltier-temp-control-junk-350722/
not that i would recommend this particularly although it does work, and it takes up very little space, but it's a pain to build and fiddly to operate. So i sometimes find myself emptying my small kegerator and using it for fermentation, it's just easier.

+1 to bucket of water and ice not being even remotely related to the idea of swamp cooling. Swamp cooling relies on 'enthalpy of vaporization', or the amount of extra energy needed by water to become vapor. Even at the boiling point, water at 100c needs an extra push (quite a big one- 2.2 kJ per gram) to become steam. Below the boiling point liquid water and water vapor are at an equilibrium, but evaporating water still needs that energy to become vapor. it essentially borrows this energy from the liquid, effectively reducing the temperature of the liquid. it's like blowing on a spoonful of hot soup. Moving air over the hot liquid replaces the air above the spoon, now saturated with water vapor, with drier air, and liquid evaporates to equilibrium in the drier air and does so by using the heat energy in the soup, thus cooling the soup. As a reference of how much energy this takes, to heat 1 gram of water 1 degree c takes 4.18 Joules. to make 1 g of 100c water into 1g of 100c steam takes 2200 joules! It's all about the evaporation, not about the bucket! But in the ice/bucket case you rely on a similar principle- enthalpy of fusion. Ice is cold, but it's the energy needed to melt the ice that gets you the biggest benefit. Water at -20c only needs the same 4.18 J per deg C to raise the temp, but to get 1g of ice at 0c to 1g of water at 0c takes an extra 334 J. (can someone please check my math on all this...)
 
Dinnerstick, I also live in an apartment. My stuff fits in the laundry closet.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f163/fermentation-temp-control-cheap-432191/index2.html#post5514390 I considered using a Peltier but the ones I had access to were more like 100w. This is a 100w ‘fridge and I have one fermentor at 16C and one at 20C.

I’m good with the 334j to melt 1.00 g of ice, but you made a mistake on the water.
Water at -20c only needs the same 4.18 J per deg C to raise the temp, but to get 1g of ice at 0c to 1g of water at 0c takes an extra 334 J. (can someone please check my math on all this...)
Water at -20C is ice, with a specific heat of 2.108 J/g. I think you meant water at 20C, which is 4.183 J/g.

I hate to nitpick, but you did say check the math. Your explanation was brilliant, except for the typo. I wish more people understood the wacky and wonderful properties of water. http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/water-thermal-properties-d_162.html
 
I was planning on letting 3/4 of the carboys (I ferment in 2 1 gallon carboys) sit submerged with a few 2L frozen coke bottles around them in the rubbermaid.

No?

Be careful not to go too cold..."a few 2L frozen 2l coke bottles" is a lot of ice...just a warning...you also don't want drastic temp swings.
 
scottyb332 said:
My experience with the T-shirt/bath/fan was more than sufficient.

My apt was a constant 75F. My wort temp dipped as low as 66F with the fan on high. By turning the fan on low it hovered around 68. With the fan off it went to 71/72F.

The mistake a lot of people make is letting the fermenter sit in the water. It should sit slightly above the water and the t-shirt wicks the moisture up.

By far the cheapest method and I had good results

Hmmm .... Interesting. I was about to start doing the ice bath thing. But I live in the colorado mountains where there is no humidity so maybe this is a better option. Plus I'm only looking to lower my temps by a few degrees. So you don't actually submerge the carboy in the water doing it this way? Does it work less well if the carboy is partially submerged? In addition to lowering the temps I also liked the idea of the larger mass of water keeping the temp more stable.

OP I hope you don't mind me piggy-backing on your thread.
 
I have been thinking about this as well. I have not built it yet but for anyone in a dry climate it should work.

The basic idea would be to use a water bath for the extra mass. This would make for slow temp swings. Then use a swamp cooler to cool a coil of tubing that circulates with the water surrounding the fermenter.

Items needed, tub for water, preferably insulated, tubing (copper best, other metal ok, plastic cheap), small aquarium pump, fan, temp controller. Place the pump and your fermenter in the tub. Connect the tubing to the pump. Run the tubing to a box and then back emptying into the water bath tub. for a box I was thinking a rubber made tub on the side with ventilation holes drilled in back. Put a fan in front of the box. Put the controller temp probe in the water bath. Connect the fan and pump power to the controller. Lastly put a few pin holes in the tubing in the box.

In operation, when the unit kicks on the pump circulates water to the tube. The tube seeps water over itself or onto a t-shirt or such wrapped around the tube. The fan blows air over the tube cooling it and thus the water circulating inside.

Probably not efficient enough for a large temperature drop. But for a 8 or so degree drop in a dry play like Colorado I don't think it would have a problem.
 
I hate to nitpick, but you did say check the math. Your explanation was brilliant, except for the typo. I wish more people understood the wacky and wonderful properties of water.

thanks, me too. it's really to the brewer's benefit. unfortunately the -20 wasn't a typo! i just dropped the ball on the specific heat of liquid water being different from ice. thanks for the correction!
 
I was planning on letting 3/4 of the carboys (I ferment in 2 1 gallon carboys) sit submerged with a few 2L frozen coke bottles around them in the rubbermaid.

No?

I tried full submersion, partial submersion and having the carboy above water level. Having it above was far more effective. I figure its because having it underwater nullifies the cooling effect of the fan.
 
Hmmm .... Interesting. I was about to start doing the ice bath thing. But I live in the colorado mountains where there is no humidity so maybe this is a better option. Plus I'm only looking to lower my temps by a few degrees. So you don't actually submerge the carboy in the water doing it this way? Does it work less well if the carboy is partially submerged? In addition to lowering the temps I also liked the idea of the larger mass of water keeping the temp more stable.

OP I hope you don't mind me piggy-backing on your thread.

Nope. Not submerged at all. I put a small metal storage rack underneath the carboy and fill the water just up to the bottom of the carboy.

It's also a lot less maintenance doing it this way. I don't have to mess with ice jugs or anything like that. Set it up and forget about it but check the temperature periodically and adjust the fan speed accordingly as needed.
 
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