Controlling Fermentation Temperatures - Poll

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What you do use to control your fermentation temperature?

  • Nothing, I rely on the ambient air or my house's AC

  • Swamp cooler or other water bath type setup

  • Converted fridge or freezer

  • Separate climate controlled room or fermentation chamber

  • Other


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neovox

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Controlling fermentation temperature is often cited in this forum as being one of the most important factors in the brewing process as it relates to producing a high quality product. Living in the midwest, I find that I can achieve temps ranging from 62F-68F six or seven months out of the year simply relying on the ambient air in my basement. In the summer months however, temperature control and consistency is significantly more challenging even running AC throughout the house. That said, I'm curious how many people on the board are using structured methods to control their temps and how many just wing it using the ambient air.
 
I was of the same mindset (65 degree basement) until my dehumidifier proceeded to raise the temp in the basement to 90 one week. I wasn't fermenting at the time but noticed it when I brought a beer down there to ferment. I quickly set up my chest freezer and attached the temp control probe to the outside of the carboy with a rag over the outside and set it at 65. I thought something was wrong with the controller then next morning when my thermometer read 58 degrees in the freezer. I put my hand on the carboy and it was definitely warmer than the ambient in the freezer.

Yeast can create a bit of heat on their own. Having a mechanism to maintain the beer at correct temperature, not just the ambient air, is really bringing my brewing to the next level. That was the best IPA I had ever brewed...
 
I do a couple of different things. I live in a cool climate, so most often a water bath is sufficient. I use water and frozen water bottles in the summer, and an aquarium heater in the winter in the water bath. Occasionally, I have to use a fridge when it's hot here, and of course for lagers I always need a fridge for lagering.

I answered "water bath" since that's usually all I need for ales, but I do use other methods too.

I'm definitely one of the people who say that the one thing that I've done made better beer is to control fermentation temperatures. Not going all grain, fixing water issues, etc, but simply fermentation temperature control.
 
I have a bathroom in my basement that has an air vent in it. If I keep the bathroom door closed, and vary the amount the vent is open, I can usually keep the ambient temp anywhere from 64 to 68 degrees. This has worked fine so far, but I would eventually like to get a freezer to convert to a fermentation chamber.
 
Swamp cooler method here...actually got 2 batches goin' using rubbermaid tub & ice bottles...gotta love that guest bathroom bath tub during the summer months in OK.
 
I went with "other", because how I control temperature depends on the beer, yeast and time of year. I have a fridge that used to be my kegger and is now used for fermentation, but much of the year I can ferment in the kitchen or utility room without any mechanical assistance.
 
I use a 5.5 cu ft chest freezer. It works perfectly for a single 6.5 gal carboy and any blow-off accessories that may be desired or necessary. Of course, after the first use I wished I had gotten the larger size to accommodate more than a single carboy.

Oh well...it is still the single most significant piece of equipment in my "brewhaus." Fermentation temperature control is, in my mind, a "critical to quality" technique.
 
I use a fermentation chamber built at home using a sanyo small refirgerator and cabinet attached. It maintaines 50F. but I am uncertain whether it will handle lagering temp requirements. I may have to employ ice or use my refrigerator used for kegs to maintain lager temp.

My ales do well in the non-summer months in the basement. I can even ferment lagers and pilsners on the floor of the basement in the winter.

Someday I would like to build a small walk in with two compartments (1 for fermenting and 1 for lagering) however that day is not anytime soon.

Salute! :mug:
 
I use a fermentation chiller. It's recycled cardboard glued together and lined with a roll of fiberglass insulation. I cool it using frozen water in a 2 liter soda bottle. It works pretty good for the $13 it cost me.
 
I live in Texas, so I have no basement and my ambient is pretty hot when I am at work and want to keep the AC off.

I have a square beverage cooler I fill with water and frozen water bottles. I can keep it at a respectable low-mid 60s with just that.

I actually bought a Ranco controller 4 months or so ago, but I have been to cheap to buy a chest freezer.
 
I converted a 5-day cooler into a fermentation chiller.

battery-powered thermostat + PC fan + frozen water bottles. I can get down to the 50s empty, but haven't tested temps with actual fermentation in progress.
 
water bath w/aquarium heater. I have a cold room in the basement that can even manage lager fermentation temps in the winter. (for the actual lagering, I use a deep freeze on temp control).
 
I couldn't decide between ambient house temp or separate climate controlled room. Technically, the temp is only controlled by the ambient temp, but it's actually a separate insulated room in the basement used almost exclusively for brewing so it's climate controlled separate from the rest of the house.

I lucked out when we were shopping for houses last year and found one with a separate closed off room in the basement that was almost fully insulated. All I had to do was run a short piece of heating duct and a vent so that I could control the temps in that room to a finer degree.

This:

beer-room1.jpg


plus this:

beer-room2.jpg


Equals about 64 degrees year round, whether it's 95 or -20 degrees outside. I can get the room as cool as 55 and as warm as 70, but I usually just leave it right in the sweet spot most of the time. :rockin:
 
Quite a few more folks than I would have guessed are using ambient house temperature. That's what I'm using at present, and mid-Fall through mid-Spring it works out just fine for me. As much as I'm diggin' on the summer weather right now, this month has really tried my patients trying to keep my fermentation temps down where they should be.
 
I use a old refer, ranco 2 stage temp control and a brewers heat pad.

This is my first time using it I am overly pleased All i can say is thats 150 bucks I should have spent a long time ago.

Bubbles within hours in airlock
10 hours after pitching Im pulling the little 3 piece airlocks, Up sized to 1/2inch hose.
 
I haven't been brewing all that long and have, so far, relied on ambient temps in a closet in the middle of my home. However I don't use AC or a heater so the temperature range is pretty wide during a brew... specially in summer/winter.

I didn't realize how much of a difference it can make until I started learning more about brewing and the arguments pretty much nailed the problems I was having with my batches. They came out good enough but could be better.

I'm thinking of a CL freezer conversion for conditioning kegs and fermenting as my next addition but that won't be happening for a while unless I see a huge deal.
 
Just built a Styrofoam/plywood, chiller box. I have yet to use it for a full fermentation, but I finished off a Steam beer in it and I was able to keep the temps at 65 using about 1 gallon of frozen water for a full day, and I'm sure it could go lower. It has the standard computer fan and home thermostat.

Some con's to this method:
-changing the water bottles daily is necessary and can become a PITA
-the fan is loud and turns on and off about every 5 minutes, and runs for about a minute or less. You can't put this near any bedroom because it would keep you up all night.

Pros:
-When space for a small fridge or freezer is not an option (my case) this is a good solution.
-the energy costs are minimal. I am using the power source from an old internet router to power my fan, so In essence it uses the power of a router. Much better effeciency than an old, inefficient Craigslist fridge.
-Cheap! Total financial cost is at most 60-70 bucks if you get all the supplies new. It will cost you time to build though, so factor that in.
 
I store everything in my basement, it's about 67 degrees down there, depending on the day. Seems to work fine.
 
I made a controller for my chest freezer using a microcontroller, an LM335, and a relay.

I've been thinking that I will make a smaller / lower cost temp controlled water bath using a Peltier cooler in an 18 gallon tub. Rough back-of-the-envelope calculations* imply I can easily keep it down to lager temperatures with a couple 300W Peltier junctions with ambient temps around 80F. If/when I test this out I'll post a thread about it.

*Assume we have 20 kg (about 5.5gal) of a 1.070 beer that ferments out completely in 48 hours (this overestimates the power output), and that it's fermenting at a more or less constant rate (not quite true, but close). This means that there are 1300 g of sugar being processed. 1 g of sugar metabolized completely results in ~17 kJ energy released, so in total 22 MJ will be released during fermentation. If this is spread over 48 hours, we have a constant power output from the fermenting beer of about 130W. In addition, there is some thermal loss to ambient. With reasonable approximations for exposed surface area, with a 20*C differential we'll have to overcome about 300W of heating from the outside world.
 
OOOOOOOOH!! a poll!!!

I like polls.

The ambient temp in my basement is 65F or so, and the concrete floor is even cooler, or else I would use something more than just AC.
 
I use a tub of water and immerse the carboy in that. I also added a 75W aquarium heater so I can keep the water 65-75 degrees depending on the fermentation. I use this in a unheated, detached garage at the beach in SoCal. It works great!! If we have a hot spell I just throw some frozen water bottles in.
 
My basement holds 70 in the Summer, be interesting to see what it gets to in the winter. But I built a SOFC (see my album in my profile) that will get down 58-60F with 1 -1/2g frozen milk jug, swapped out every 12 hrs. The fan, placed is on a timer and runs 2hrs on, 2hrs off.
 
Does anyone use their keezer and depend upon the yeasts producing enough heat to keep them going?

I keep my keezer around 40, and have been toying with doing this until we can get into the next house.
 
I use a wet bath towel and a fan. This works reasonably well as long as you can get re-soak the towel before the beer temp rises too far.
 
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