Fermentation Cooling

I am working out the logistics of placing my fermenter. I found a good room, downstairs bathroom, that I can keep temps fairly low.

I am going to be buying an aquarium heater in case I need to heat the wort, but wondering about cooling. I have plastic buckets as fermenters right now and am wondering if the t-shirt dipped in water over the fermenter will cool off the bucket as well as it cools a carboy? If not, any other suggestions for cooling a bucket?

I use the wet t-shirt method with my plastic bucket fermenter and find that it does lower the temp about 5-7 degrees. I've not tried it with a carboy so I have no basis of comparison.

Works the same with a glass carboy!

As for heating - I have never even considered a heater for my brewing and we get temps down to -30! The basement cools off to the high 50's in January but it's not too hard to keep a carboy warm enough! If it does become a problem I find yeast that work better cold.

bluedragon said:

I am working out the logistics of placing my fermenter. I found a good room, downstairs bathroom, that I can keep temps fairly low.

I am going to be buying an aquarium heater in case I need to heat the wort, but wondering about cooling. I have plastic buckets as fermenters right now and am wondering if the t-shirt dipped in water over the fermenter will cool off the bucket as well as it cools a carboy? If not, any other suggestions for cooling a bucket?

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Are you going to also use a cooler filled with water (and put the bucket in the cooler)? It's working well for me. I then wrap a towel around the top to hide it all from the light. If I want to be extra sure I dunk the towel just like dunking a t-shirt. Nice thing about this is I can put a thermometer in the cooler to check on the water temp and if it's too high I can add frozen ice bottles. I suppose if it were too cold I could warm it with a fish tank heater but it's rarely cold where I am.