How do fellow Texans control temp during fermentation?

I don't have a keezer or the "son of" DIY contraption. Currently if my kegarator (Danby) is full, which is always is!, I use a rubbermaid tub with water and the blue refreeze able blocks or frozen water bottles.

I figured I would start this one and see what kind of responses show up!

I bought a 40 qt. Aluminum pot from Amazon and put the fermenter in that. Add water and ice/freezer blocks. Stick a dial thermometer in the water or wort and put wet towels over anything that shows. If more is needed, a fan on the wet towels.

I bought a 14 CuFt freezer and wired it through a Johnson controller to keep it at a certain temp to ferment. By far the best investment into homebrewing I've made. Temp COntrol is second to sanitation for producing great beers.

jungatheart said:

I bought a 40 qt. Aluminum pot from Amazon and put the fermenter in that. Add water and ice/freezer blocks. Stick a dial thermometer in the water or wort and put wet towels over anything that shows. If more is needed, a fan on the wet towels.

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What size fermenter do you have? I have a 6.5 gal(23 L) glass carboy. Not sure on the width but I'll search Amazon...I never really thought of that. That might be the excuse I need to get a bigger kettle for 10 gallon batches!

MyNameIsPaul said:

I bought a 14 CuFt freezer and wired it through a Johnson controller to keep it at a certain temp to ferment. By far the best investment into homebrewing I've made. Temp COntrol is second to sanitation for producing great beers.

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Do you know if the model you bought can hold a corny without having to add a cheater? If so and the price were right I'd like to get that for lagering and/or kreezer.

I have a wooden box with foam board insulation on the inside. On the end is a small window air conditioning unit and I have a Johnsons Controls temperature control unit.
I can get the temp down to 60 degrees, but i usually use it at 67.
It's kinda big i can put 4 carboys in it, but it could be made smaller.

eyeimbibe said:

What size fermenter do you have? I have a 6.5 gal(23 L) glass carboy. Not sure on the width but I'll search Amazon...I never really thought of that. That might be the excuse I need to get a bigger kettle for 10 gallon batches!

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Got this pot: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001CHKL68/ref=oh_details_o04_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I have a 6.5 gallon glass carboy and a 6 gallon Better Bottle one. Both fit but the glass one doesn't have lots of room left over. I like the pot and for $40 shipped I think it's a deal.

Chest freezer from craig's list and a temp controller. About 200 bucks will take your brewing to the next level. Good luck

I now use a 5 CF chest freezer and a Johnson Temp controller. It set me back $250 or so, but I think it was worth it for the entirely effortless temperature control it affords me.

I'm too lazy to constantly replace ice or frozen water bottles, and "room temperature" fermenting was only an option in the winter.

I got a 5cf chest freezer ($150 new at home depot) with a homemade temp contol on it. Its working great the only problem is I only have room for one at a time. Need to get a bigger one. Also finish my other temperature controller i'm building

Klutz said:

I have a wooden box with foam board insulation on the inside. On the end is a small window air conditioning unit and I have a Johnsons Controls temperature control unit.
I can get the temp down to 60 degrees, but i usually use it at 67.
It's kinda big i can put 4 carboys in it, but it could be made smaller.

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I'm not in Texas(but damn close to it) and I have basically the same thing:


With this I can get my internal fermentation temps to the mid 50's even in my 110F garage in the summer

Ice, then frozen bottles in ice bucket. That's my laundry closet, in a tiny apartment. I'm not strong enough to put a carboy in a freezer, it's all I can do to lift a full carboy.

Wynne-R said:

Ice, then frozen bottles in ice bucket. That's my laundry closet, in a tiny apartment. I'm not strong enough to put a carboy in a freezer, it's all I can do to lift a full carboy.

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I like the idea of the copper around the carboys. Do you feel it keeps the carboy cold enough and how often do you have to push new cold water through the pipes? Any write up online?

corkybstewart said:

I'm not in Texas(but damn close to it) and I have basically the same thing:


With this I can get my internal fermentation temps to the mid 50's even in my 110F garage in the summer

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You and Klutz have gotten me thinking of going down this route. Do you have a keyword I can search for or a link to some instructions?

Also, how has it affected your electric bill? I'm wondering the difference in cost between a chest freezer and this box...

Hi eyeimbibe.

Oh sure I can do anything I want with the temperature. Last night I went from 100+ degrees F to 60 in about twenty minutes. Tapwater is 75° F, so I just went for it. Let’s melt some ice, see about this cold break people talk about.

The thermowell temperature of the beer runs at most 1° F warmer than the water bath. I pitch at 61° F and let it go to 63. I hold it there for 2-3 days and then gradually let it drift up to 68. I hold it there until I’m ready to bottle.

When I had the probe near the bottom of the tub, the pump would run as much as twenty minutes every two hours. I moved the probe between the coils near the top and now it runs 15-20 seconds every two minutes. That’s worst case scenario. Absent high krausen, it runs every twenty minutes or so depending on the temperature difference between the air and the water. I keep my apartment about 80 in the summer, electricity is freakin’ expensive in North Texas.

I have insulated the tubs since the picture was taken, two wraps of R-13 fiberglass. I use 8 half liter bottles and they last about 12 hours. Temperature regulation is within .1° C, as close as I can measure.

I appreciate your interest. Most people don’t get it.

eyeimbibe said:

You and Klutz have gotten me thinking of going down this route. Do you have a keyword I can search for or a link to some instructions?

Also, how has it affected your electric bill? I'm wondering the difference in cost between a chest freezer and this box...

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I had everything lying around except the foam board. I think the window A/C unit was about $100 when I got it. It's about $200 worth of stuff with the temp control.
I keep it in the front room of my house and i keep my house at 77-78 degrees so it only has to drop 10 degrees, I don't really notice any change in my power bill, other than it being higher because it's summer and my house A/C is running more.

To build it I made the inside of the frame the exact width of the A/C unit. Made it 6" taller than the 6.5 gallon better bottle with the air lock attached, then made it 4ft long to do less cutting. Lined the inside with foam board and then used a thick plastic drop cloth draped in the bottom for spills. added some wheels and i can move it around.

I saw this design and like it. More compact. https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f51/another-dorm-fridge-based-fermentation-chamber-71675/

I would use a window A/C and not a mini fridge, the window A/C unit puts out more BTU and will not have to run so hard to keep the temperature. But it is good to have the A/C unit higher than the carboy the cold air will drop. On mine it opens from the top, so opening it doesn't let out as much cold, but this style would be easier as side open.

eyeimbibe said:

You and Klutz have gotten me thinking of going down this route. Do you have a keyword I can search for or a link to some instructions?

Also, how has it affected your electric bill? I'm wondering the difference in cost between a chest freezer and this box...

Click to expand...

I haven't noticed any significant increase in y electric bill, but then in the summer I have my pool filter and water well running a lot of the time so the bump from this is pretty small. A also built mine out of scraps from other projects so the $100 AC was my only real cost. The better insulated it is the less the AC runs, and I chill my wort to about 5 degrees cooler than I want it to ferment at and let it rise on its own. This way the AC is just maintaining temp instead of actually cooling and it only runs 10-15 minutes per hour.

My conical stand is tall so I had to build something it would fit in, and a chest freezer wouldn't work. If I were to do it again I would probably go to an appliance repair guy and get an old non-running upright freezer shell and modify it. It would have great insulation and a tight fitting door already so all I'd have to do is mount the AC and cut a hole for it.

I bought a $25 temp controller on eBay from China, a $25 dollar Craigslist fridge, and some wiring. You don't have to get as fancy as this thread, but it has some good ideas for temp control. Compressor hooked up to cooling side, and I have a fan and heat lamp set to the heat side. It's a 2 way controller.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f51/ebay-fish-tank-controller-build-using-wal-mart-parts-261506/
Price

Mine's very similar to PricePeeler's except i found the fridge in my neighborhood w/ a sign that read "free". I have about $50 invested in the whole thing.

I have three fermentation chambers....two are Avanti electronic fridges. Found them cheap once and got two and used homemade temp controllers with the STC-1000 units from China....the other is an old mini-fridge. I think I have about $325 in all three. The electronic fridges are great..no compressor so no hump. And they hold 6 gal better bottles perfectly, as long as you cut the door rack off which is really simple to do with a coping saw....cover the insulation with duct tape (I used white and voila!
I also have heating pads in them because I used to be in northwest Louisiana and kept them in the garage and it did get cold sometimes. But now I'm in Mission TX and doubt I will ever need them........

You would be surprised how cheap you can find an upright frost-free freezer at the used appliance stores littered around Pasadena.
With $150, some creative wiring, and a STC1000; I can brew year round at any temperature in Houston.
Achieved heating by wiring the heating element used to defrost the coils to the heating side of the STC and cooling by wiring the compressor to the cooling side of the STC. Wired the fan to run constantly to provide circulation at all times.

When I read ‘creative wiring’ I pictured a little mushroom cloud. On further reading and a little thought, that is pretty damn creative.

Then again, what’s the heat for? I think I’d rather have the defroster. Not much need for heat in Houston. Be careful that you don’t get cycling back and forth from temperature overshoot.

mredge73 said:

Achieved heating by wiring the heating element used to defrost the coils to the heating side of the STC

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That is genius! I made one of these.

Not much heat is needed; my heater rarely runs and when it does it warms up pretty quickly.
But I can do Ales in December in the middle of a cold front and I like that flexibility. I brew a lot more in the fall/winter because I cannot stand to be around the brewpot in the summer.

Defroster is not needed if you never freeze the coils; when it is not a fermentation chamber I use it as a refrigerator so I never get near freezing.

These circuits are very easy to modify once you get your hands on a schematic; these are easily available online.
Took me a little while because I wanted to design the circuit where I could turn it back to factory in less then 5 minutes.
So all my wiring changes have spade connections on them and I added lots of labels to guide me into putting it back if I want it to be a standard freezer again.

This is how I do it.

5 individually controlled environments, one commercial beer fridge, one cellar (to the very left in that photo), and a 20cuft freezer for kegs. I also have a Danby kegerator with 3 taps.

Just in case you are wondering, my bike is on the top right (out of view).

BTW, lower left of that photo, is the cage to my attack iguana. She is 4ft long, and is trained in 10 types of karate.

That's cool...literally
I only have three individual environments, all Avanti 2.5 CF compressorless with STC-1000 controls that I built and heat pads inside......not that I need those anymore.
One chest freezer that holds 4 kegs perfectly and one old fridge/kegerator with 3 taps.
Sorry to say I don't have an attack iguana....but a beer loving pomeranian that thinks it's a rottweiller .....and it's not caged.

Don't have the space or I'd probably go for a cheap fridge and an STC-1000. Right now it's about 75-78 or so in my apartment most of the time so I'm brewing a Saison without any temp control. I do have an Igloo cube cooler I'm planning on using as a swamp cooler for next batch and just swapping out frozen bottles.

Up until now, my brother in law and I have used a spare bathtub upstairs at his house. Filled with a bunch of ice water to cool down hot wort, and then maintained with cold water and frozen bottles, fan pointed at the 2 carboys, and dropping the AC to about 65 (he doesn't mind running his entire upstairs for 2 wks during active fermentation). Our bathtub system actually works perfectly, but you do have to baby it and monitor very closely, especially during the first couple days of fermentation.

We recently picked up an old school milk-cooler from a going out of business sale for $50 at a local watering hole they used to keep beer cool in, and picked up a digital Johnson controls temp controller. The cooler is big, old, dirty, loud, but fits 4 X 6.5 gallon buckets and/or better bottles with room to spare!!

We have yet to put it into service (haven't had time to brew since we got it), but looking forward to automating temp control. We've run it for a couple days, and it seems to run OK and get temps plenty cold for ales (though we've got some more testing to do to see how well it can maintain temps). I think I posted some pics of it here a while back when I got it. If I can find them, I'll post them again.

Found the pics. It's an old Beverage Air. The pics aren't the best, but you can kind of see how comfortably it fits 4 fermenters. It also opens from the top & the front (not shown in the pic), which is nice for lifting heavy fermenters in and out.

BigFloyd said:

Craigslist fermenter fridge + STC-1000. Craigslist upright lagering/cold-crash freezer + STC-1000.

No worries.

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+1. Talked friend out of an old fridge he didn't use and a cheap controller. Less than $50.

I'm not only in Texas, but am in South Texas. This means when the rest of the state is hot, we're hotter and when the rest of the state is cold, we're still hot. My choice is brew in warm weather or hot as hell weather.

I use the swamp cooler and put it in a closet that is fairly steady in temperature. Because I do double batches I need space for two fermenters at once. I use a large gray tub purchased from Walmart. I put the two fermenters into it, pour water into the tub up the around the level of the wort and then float frozen water jugs in the water to pull it down further. I change the number of these the the duration according to the temperature I am looking for. It can be a pain in the butt, but it gives me an excuse to check on my beer. I think the total investment was around $20.

Here is a picture:

Right now I have a rauchbock fermenting at 54F in my fermentation box, that's the coldest I've ever tried but I think it could go colder if I wanted. Once it got stable the AC only comes on for a few minutes at a time.

I'm currently converting a chest freezer into a combo keezer/fermentation chamber.
It's a used freezer I found on craigslist.

I built a little 2-plug control box with a project box and an STC-1000.
I'm adding a 1x8 cherry collar and starting with two taps.
I'm going to attach the collar to the lid.

I have a feed bucket and aquarium heater that I'll use for my fermentation.
I'll keep the keezer temp at 45F (or whatever drinking temp I want for the kegs), and I'll set the aquarium heater to whatever fermentation temp I want (+/- a few degrees depending on stage of fermentation).

I'm trying to take some photos as I go, and I'll put up a thread for my build in case that helps someone else.

Craigslist chest freezer with a STC-1000 total investment around $120.00. It keeps the beer pretty close to the temp I wont depending on the stage fermentation. If I set it at 64 during the first part of fermentation it will keep the beer at 67 than I raise it a degree after three days until I get to 67 and the beer temp never changes. I have one probe in the carboy to a digital display outside the freezer. My probe for the STC-1000 hangs in the air inside the freezer. I know most people tape the probe to the side but I think this is the more accurate.

I finished up my keezer and go it up and running with a keg of Janet's Brown Ale and a 1/6 barrel of Alaskan Amber from Spec's (I have a sanke coupler).

Fermented the Janet's at 65F in my keezer/fermentation chamber. It's early but it tastes great.

Inside the house we usually keep the temp in the high 70's, and I've been able to get my glass carboy down to 70-71 by just wrapping a wet towel around it, and down into the 60's by pointing a fan at the wet-wrapped carboy during the hottest part of the day. It's cheap and it works. Can't exactly lager that way, though.

I'm on my second batch fermenting now, and I'm doing a swamp cooler setup on it. I've got a large rubbermaid-type tub in an extra upstairs bathroom, with water filled to around the level of the wort. I've also got a moisture-wicking t-shirt soaked in water over the top of the carboy (plastic from NB) Rotating frozen water bottles before I leave for work, when I get home, and when I go to bed, and it's keeping the wort around 62-66.

This is upstairs, where we rarely go, so the A/C is off all the time. It's not nearly as hot up there as it was a month or two ago, of course, but it's still in the mid to upper 80s during the day.

I have a fridge with just an analog controller. Easy peasy. 100 for fridge. 55 for controller. I do small batch beers.