Evaporative cooling system

I have this running in my living room right now. The house has fluctuated between 75 and 85 F and I have yet to see either of the fermenters get up to 70 F. Typically I have seen 66-68 F. Fermentation is very active. These carboys hold 10 gallons of brown ale that I brewed on Saturday and pitched hydrated Nottingham into on Sunday.

- Plastic bin
- $20 aquarium pump
- $20 box fan
- Two old t-shirts
- $5 worth of tubing/PVC
- A bucketful of water

Here in Seattle, we only have to deal with heat for about four or five weeks out of the whole year, and it rarely gets over 90 F, so many of us don't have AC. This setup gives me a cheap and easy way to keep brewing ale throughout the summer.

Nice work, Reese!

Nice indeed. I just gave up and started brewing belgian golden strongs and saisons. I'd kill for a kolsh now though. This seems really reasonable. Maybe if I put some daisies in that bucket I could get swmbo on board.

love the box fan, where did you find the idiot proof version(arrow), was that an add on feature? all kidding aside, nice little set up. maybe add some rocks, a little bonzai tree, and you'll have one hell of a water feature in the corner(jmo88, take note, that is how you sell it to the swmbo) :rockin:

Retarded_Penguin_Brewing said:

love the box fan, where did you find the idiot proof version(arrow), was that an add on feature?

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I had some help from Mr. Sharpie.

Have you had any problem with mold growing?

kmat123 said:

Have you had any problem with mold growing?

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That'll probably be a problem eventually. I would imagine that changing the water, replacing the t-shirts, and wiping down the carboys with a light bleach solution would take care of any mold.

why not just add a touch of bleach to the water? or maybe check out your local pool/spa dealer for some sort of water treatment?

You could put a table spoon of bleach in the water, that should keep the mold down. You'll probably want white T shirts though...

That's a cool idea, but this year here in Taxachusetts, it's been in the upper 80's to low 90's, with high humidity, so I doubt that it would work well here.

If I see mold, I'll definitely start adding a bit of bleach to the water. In all likelihood, I'll only have to run this apparatus for another week and a half before I cold-crash and keg this beer. I figure I've got a good shot at dodging mold before then.

Yeah, you could get lucky and not get the mold. But why chance it? A table spoon of bleach is cheap, and it won't hurt your beer. It might do something to the color of the T shirts, but you said they're old.

Having lived several years in the desert I can vouch for the effects of evaporative cooling. The one down side you may see is it is fairly ineffective on humid days (Seattle doesn't really get rain, right?).

I think I might have to try this. I decided to brew my first lager and didn't really think about the fact that my ferm chamber is going to be tied up for a few months at ale-unfriendly temps. Now I can't do any ales until it's finished. I live in south Arkansas and it's always extremely humid here though. I do have central air so hopefully that will be able to keep the indoor humidity low enough that this will still work.

I think I understand the set up from the pic but just to make sure...
You use the aquarium pump and PVC to ensure the t-shirts are always saturated with water, correct?

If this works in my climate I think I might have to nerd out and attach my extra temp controller to the fan to see if I can't get a somewhat steady temperature.

How long does the water last before you have to add to it.

I'm curious if this would work very well at our temps. I have a evaporative cooler in the garage that holds 20 gallons and you have to top it off every two hours or so. It has only been 105 lately at 20% humidity. Can't imagine what its like when the hot weather hits.

tjcavitt said:

Having lived several years in the desert I can vouch for the effects of evaporative cooling. The one down side you may see is it is fairly ineffective on humid days (Seattle doesn't really get rain, right?).

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Seattle doesn't get any rain for a couple of weeks out of the year.

This is a good idea. I've been using a water bath and using ice packs to keep the temps as regular as I can. So far it's worked pretty well, but I have to swap out ice packs at least 4 or 5 times a day.