Swamp Bath Fermentation Temps

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otownpyle

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Question, If I got a swamp bath w/ an ambient temp of 73 degrees F how much warmer is the liquid in the carboy?
If my swamp bath is big enough does it provide a good heat sink? I'm using on of those plastic storage bins (e.g. http://bit.ly/b768tM) that you get from #StruggleMart for like $7... so there's a good bit of buffer there.

I'm going outta town for a few days Friday and brewing tonight. What's the best way to guarantee that my temps are low enough, other than keeping the A/C down? I guess I'll try to turn it down to 72 while I'm gone? I don't like going much lower than that here in good ole hot & humid ississippiM. Thanks for your help.
 
Here's what I do to keep temps 62-65*F:

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Basically swap out 6 frozen water bottles once at morning and night. If your leaving town for a couple of days you won't be able to do this though, so not sure what to tell ya other than to stick around or wait to brew till you can control temps with frozen bottles. During your first days of fermentation the yeast will warm thing up eating away so even if you leave your air on 72 I couldn't say you'd be safe leaving it. Worst case of starting it and leaving a couple of days, you'll ferment high and get off flavors or alcohols that may give you headaches by the warm temps speeding up fermentation.
 
Ok cool. I can get my buddy to roll over a few times to do that. Thanks Revvvvvvvvvvvvvy! One more question, how high up on the carboy do you usually have the swamp bath water? Is that a 6 gall carboy? Water about halfway up? I'm also doing my primary in a bucket for the first time... I usually use my carboy but it's full & I got an empty wine bucket.
 
Ok cool. I can get my buddy to roll over a few times to do that. Thanks Revvvvvvvvvvvvvy! One more question, how high up on the carboy do you usually have the swamp bath water? Is that a 6 gall carboy? Water about halfway up? I'm also doing my primary in a bucket for the first time... I usually use my carboy but it's full & I got an empty wine bucket.

I have one of the thermo stickers on my carboy, so I add the frozen bottles then water to get the level just below the sticker thermo. If the thermo gets wet, it starts screwing up and has to be dried overnight to get it back working again. You can see my sharpie gallon markings on the carboy to the left side, I was shooting for 5.5gallons on this batch. If you don't have the thermo I say have as much of it as you can under water just want to keep it stable.

+1 to the tshirt, you can see mine in the pic but I removed it to take that picture. I drape my tshirt over the carboy (to keep water off my thermo) but you could put the shirt over your entire carboy to help wick up some of that water from the cooler.
 
Ah ok... Yeah i thought about covering it w/ packing tape to hopefully seal it off from the water... I think i have mine lower than that...
 
Man just found a great resolution to my potential temp issues... The whole reason I was worried is that I'm on a tight brewing schedule but I'm going outta town this weekend...

But I have a pet nanny coming over to let my dogs out 3 times a day... BOOM! She's also a bottle swapper! Thanks guys!

Just twice a day or since I have her for 3 visits should I do every visit?
 
I used the swamp cooler on my last 4 brews I did during a heat wave in the North East. Kept my primaries down to 64*-66*.
The only problem I have is that on 3 of my primaries, it ruined the "brewmometer." They are now just white boxes. One ended up coming back to life. The water level was never above the thermometer. What do you do about that?
 
Well I was gonna try to put packing tape over the brewmometer see if it sealed it off... i've yet to need a swamp bath this year as I've not brewed since late May and probably needed one then but had no clue... This is my first year of brewing...
 
When ever I get the white boxes on the temp sticker, I wait till I'm done fermenting in that carboy/bucket then clean it out and put into the garage...our GA heat dry's it out very well and brings it back to life everytime then I bring it back inside for storage.
 
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