Fermenting temperature-slight problem

Hello, this is my first post here. I have not brewed any beer yet, and am waiting on some paychecks to buy the equipment, but I own and have read "How to Brew" and "The Complete Joy of Homebrewing" cover to cover, and am really psyched about getting started. There's only one small, yet very large, problem.

Most of the brew yeasts I read about/saw at the local homebrew place/heard about ferment at around 65 or 70 degrees. Because I live in the wonderful Pennsylvania suburbs, and summer temperatures regularly top 90 or 100, nowhere in my house is it even close to 65. We don't have a basement, and there's no way our air conditioner can keep it 65 in here for two weeks straight.

So my question: if I were to buy a cheap fridge off of Craigslist or something, will it be able to maintain 65 degrees? Is there a device I can buy/rig up to allow it to do that? Or maybe there are yeasts that ferment at somewhere around the temperature of my house in the summer, i.e. 78 or 80?

Thanks for your help

There is a ton of information on the forums regarding this, so I would suggest running a search, but these are pretty much your options:

1. Water Bath: Spare tub or large plastic bucket. water temperature is easier to maintain and you can drop the temp by adding ice
2. Fridge conversion: Most fridges will not stay at 65 F, so you will have to convert it. This is very easy for certain fridges, like i said search the forum
3. Wet t-shirt and fan: Not the best way, only drops a couple degrees
4. MY PERSONAL CHOICE: Son of Fermentation Chiller. I built this a while back and it easily keeps temperatures at 20 F below room temperature. It's worked like a dream.

Click here: http://home.elp.rr.com/brewbeer/chiller/chiller.PDF

and here: http://www.azhomebrewers.org/modules.php?op=modload&name=Sections&file=index&req=viewarticle&artid=28&page=1

Hope this helps

Thanks! That Chiller thing looks very interesting. I love building my own stuff (the mechanical equivalent of homebrewing, I guess), so this should be a good time.

And yea, Search > Me. Haha.

I have the same problem, I live in NYC and the days following my first brew the temperature rose to ~85. Since I didn't have the foresight to get a cool or anything of the sort, what kind of damage am I looking at for my brew?

pfranco81 said:

I have the same problem, I live in NYC and the days following my first brew the temperature rose to ~85. Since I didn't have the foresight to get a cool or anything of the sort, what kind of damage am I looking at for my brew?

Click to expand...

Higher temps result in additional flavors from your yeasties. Usually fruit, banana, clove, it depends on the strain though. If the temps were too high, you might have stressed the yeast too much and they may not have completely fermented your beer. Still, it'll be beer. Probably fine beer too.

Here's my solution. I just add a little ice about once/day to keep it at the temp I want.

I second the son of fermentation chiller. I built one large enough for 2 primaries and it is definitely one of the best DIY projects in my limited brewing career thus far. My apartment is 77F right now and my chiller with 2 primaries bubbling like crazy is sitting at 63F. I use 4L chlorine jugs for my ice packs, I only use one at a time in the chiller and swap it every morning. It's not actually completely thawed by then but it just makes for an easy to remember habit that way.

On the other hand it costs a fair bit to build one (that insulation isn't cheap) so if you can score a cheap fridge on craigslist and don't mind the extra electrical charges I would go with that and an external temp controller (not that those temp controllers are too cheap either).