Fermenting a German Altbier

I want to brew a nice session beer this weekend for an upcoming NFL fantasy draft party. When I lived in Dusseldorf I was a huge of fan of the classic Altbier and figured this would be the best candidate. My only problem is that I have now way of controlling the fermentation at lower temperatures. I was wondering if anybody had any tips on how to maintain around 60-65* F. I've done the coldwater bath with a t-shirt around the carboy wicking up water. Would this work with some frozen 2L bottles in the water? Thanks in adavance for the help.

What is the ambient temp and how is the humidity where you live?


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Altbiers are very clean fermentations. You will probably have trouble reproducing your favorite altbier without a fridge. I've never used the swamp cooler method with the ice packs, etc, so I can't comment on that.

I do my lagers in the fridge, but not my hybrids.

My basement is around 70 degrees ambient. For the hybrids like altbier, I put the fermenter in a tub of water, put in 2-3 frozen Gatorade bottles per day and cover with a large blanket for a little extra insulation. Does a good job of maintaining 60-62 degrees for the first few days of fermentation when I'm trying to avoid high ester formation. I've done it for so long that I have the system down, and don't bother using my fridge.

The ambient is around 72* F and the humidity isn't bad. I live in Hawaii so it is humid but not very.

How deep of water do you have your fermenter sitting in?

I put my better bottle or big mouth bubbler in something like this. http://m.partycity.com/products/blue+tub+with+rope+handles+17+gallons

It gets covered about 2/3 to 3/4 of the way by water. It's enough to keep a steady temp.