Help maintaining ferment temps in Florida

So I live in Florida and as with most homes here, I don't have a basement to leave my fermenter in. I am trying everything I can maintain good temps without buying a second chest freezer on top of the one that I already have filled with food. Right now I am using the T-shirt method but that is going to be a lot of work over the next month as I ferment my IPA I brewed this passed Sunday. I am thinking about building a cooler box out of 2" insulated sheathing and loading it with frozen water bottles but not sure if this will be much different. Anybody have suggestions as to how someone in the south (Florida) can easily maintain temps fairly easily and not too expensive? By the way the reason I am trying to do the as easy and inexpensive as possible is due to SWMBO is getting slightly irritated with my new hobby

How large a batch are you making? I find that if you do a 5G batch- you will be able to 'sink' the carboy / bucket in a swamp cooler (laundry tub, wrap some blankets around it to further insulate it) - rotate several 2 liter empty soda bottles filled with water / ICE- in there- in the morning- and the evening-

I found this to be VERY effective during my hot summer in NY. My room temp was 80- yet my carboy was sitting at a pretty 65- with 2 2liter bottles of ice. I have at least 8 2 liter bottles in the freezer so that I can always have extras. I sometimes use them to balance out the space in the cooler to keep things from rocking around.

It by far is the quickest- easiest way.

I'm in the Tampa Bay area. I have a commercial beverage cooler I bought for $125 that I added a Johnson A-419 temp controller to for $53. Over the long haul, that's pretty cheap and very blingy!!

Have you searched the SWAMP COOLER method?? Basically just go get one of those big laundry baskets from WalMart (better known as keg buckets in college!!) for about $10-12, fill it with water, and rotate in 4-6 bottles of frozen water bottles every 8-12 hours. That maintains a pretty steady 65ish for under $15 total investment.

I use a bucket filled with 60 degree water, cover carboy with a towel and use the frozen bottles to keep it cool. That should be all you need. As long as you keep the carboy cool during the primary fermentation stage you should be alright. Just make sure you put some sanitizer in with the water to keep it from getting smelly.

Have you searched craigslist?

I recently found a fridge with an already wired love controller for $75. I got tired of doing the swamp cooler method.

Get a Cool Brewing Cooler. It works like a swamp cooler, except it isn't as messy. You can keep your temps in check with that, and they are cheap. It also has a small enough footprint that you can just keep it in a closet, out of the way - nice feature for SWMBO.

EvilDeadAsh said:

Get a Cool Brewing Cooler. It works like a swamp cooler, except it isn't as messy. You can keep your temps in check with that, and they are cheap. It also has a small enough footprint that you can just keep it in a closet, out of the way - nice feature for SWMBO.

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Have you had any experience with this cooler? This sounds like a good idea and it looks a lot better than the bucket despite being a little more cost wise than the bucket. I am thinking SWMBO would appreciate that over a bucket therefore she may be more reasonable about its cost.

mikemet said:

How large a batch are you making? I find that if you do a 5G batch- you will be able to 'sink' the carboy / bucket in a swamp cooler (laundry tub, wrap some blankets around it to further insulate it) - rotate several 2 liter empty soda bottles filled with water / ICE- in there- in the morning- and the evening-

I found this to be VERY effective during my hot summer in NY. My room temp was 80- yet my carboy was sitting at a pretty 65- with 2 2liter bottles of ice. I have at least 8 2 liter bottles in the freezer so that I can always have extras. I sometimes use them to balance out the space in the cooler to keep things from rocking around.

It by far is the quickest- easiest way.

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Oh, it is a 5 gallon batch in a 6.5 gallon bucket.

dkeller12 said:

SWMBO is getting slightly irritated with my new hobby

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I know exactly how you feel. First batch in primary right now and I'm not popular!

Who knew that making her a cider and a gluten free beer wouldn't be sufficient to keep her happy!? Maybe I need to sacrifice to the beer gods.

As far as cooling: I have my bucket half submerged in a cooler with a towel over the top, ambient temp is 75 and the bucket stayed at 72 for the whole process, which is too high according to what I've read/been told.

Even adding ice and cooler bricks didn't help except for very temporarily. I'll be looking into the cooler EvilDeadAsh mentioned pretty soon.

I have a similar issue since I too live in the south (albeit not quite as far south as you). I've found that getting a large rubbermaid (square or rectangle) tub and filling it half way with cold water and putting that in your tub is a great way to keep the fermenter cool. I have mine sitting directly under an AC vent too. I actually discovered that the t-shirt method is not effective for me. Try to swap out 2 frozen 2 liters bottles once a day or every other day. One should go on either side of the fermenter. I also pour a healthy amount of bleach (eeek!) into the water in the tub to keep the flies and other critters and vegetation from thriving in there. I would just about kill to have a basement, but there aren't many of those to be found around here.

The t-shirt thing doesn't work because the humidity tends to provide mold a good place to live even if you change it out regularly. The water that wicks up the shirt also becomes warm and dank very quickly. I prefer to have the top of the fermenter exposed to cool circulating air than to be trapped under a warm, dank shirt with mold spores.

How many degrees does the bucket with frozen 2 litres drop the fermenting wort?
If the fermentation can run 10 degrees over ambient temps, can the ice bath get the fermentation down to 10 degrees below ambient? 20 degrees?

I also live in Florida. I use a big Walmart fishing cooler, turned on its end, with the 6.5 gallon bucket inside. Swap out frozen bottles every 12-24 hours and you can get the temperatures much lower without the hassle of a swamp cooler.

Looks goofy as hell, but works well

Halbrust said:

How many degrees does the bucket with frozen 2 litres drop the fermenting wort?
If the fermentation can run 10 degrees over ambient temps, can the ice bath get the fermentation down to 10 degrees below ambient? 20 degrees?

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I usually wait 10-12 hrs before pitching to make sure it's in the temp range I need, but with 2 frozen bottles I can have the ambient down to 60 pretty quickly. If I'm diligent about it, I can keep the actual around 65-68 without issue. Personally, I don't freak out if it hits 70-72 since I can't really taste a difference in the end product. As long as I'm close and keep it steady, I'm happy. My first brew was a completely different issue though. That humdinger went up to 82 before I realized what was happening. Thankfully it was a hefe, so the flavors actually blended pretty well.

I use the swamp cooler with ice method in SE Texas to great effect. I have a Fermometer stuck to the fermenter, and another thermometer in my water. My water is usually kept about 15* below ambient (75-85*), and my fermenter has been steady at 2-4* above the water temp.

One thing I'd add to/contradict about some of the above--when the whole thing is covered with blankets to insulate it actually keeps things warmer rather than cooler. In other words, the insulation does a better job off keeping the heat generated by the yeast in than it does of keeping the cold in/ambient heat out. I'm pretty diligent about watching both thermometers, and the difference between insulated/non-insulated systems was about 8*.

dkeller12 said:

Have you had any experience with this cooler? This sounds like a good idea and it looks a lot better than the bucket despite being a little more cost wise than the bucket. I am thinking SWMBO would appreciate that over a bucket therefore she may be more reasonable about its cost.

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Yup. It works great. I live in Philly, so its not quite as hot as FL but it was humid as **** this summer, and I was easily able to keep my fermenting beer in the 62-65 degree range with ambient temperatures in the 80s (indoors)

Besides lagers, I set all my fermenters in regular ole coolers and fill with water pretty close to the top and aim a slow blowing fan at them. My house is 78 during the day and any time I've checked the temp it's been 68 or lower. That's during aggressive fermentation too. I was all set to throw in some frozen bottles if needed, but with the high not exceeding 68 I don't worry about it.

Oh, and I'm in Phoenix, AZ so I would think this would work for anyone just about anywhere.

GL

If sweating doesn't cool you down, it's not going to cool your beer.

I had hard time this last brew and i aimed a fan at it in a dark room and kept it lower. Just a suggestion
Edit: fan already suggested. Sorry