summer time brewing in SC

How do you guys brew in the summer? I am too cheap to run my AC constantly to keep the temps below 70, (usually stay around 78 or so). Love to hear your thoughts as I now have a lot of empty carboys - and I am working on emptying the bottles too!

I think the answer is investing or building a fermentaion chamber of some sort. That or brew beers that ferment well at higher temperatures. If you figure the cost of a chamber versus the cost of ingredients and time if you try to brew beers in the summer that might come out bad without temp control, the cost is negligible. Especially when you consider the used chest freezer option with a cheap controller. For me once the fermentation temperature control was established the problem became cooling wort down effectively with ground water that is 80* + degrees in summer down here. Thank God for free ice.

I have a buddy in Charleston that got me started in brewing many years ago. Cooling wort is definitely an issue. In the summer, he reverts to extract & partial boils. Full boil cooling would require an immersion chiller + plate chiller combo: use the IC to get below 120 or so, and then using it as a prechiller in a bucket of ice to cool the intake water for the plate chiller.

A fermentation chamber or keezer is the way to go.

I agree with both Copbrew133 and CastleHollow. Fermentation chamber for constant temps and I use ground water for the initial wort knockout then 40 pounds of ice in a keg full of water for the finally temp drop. I have a convoluted chiller and use pumps so it does make things a little easier.

Thanks for the comments Y'all.

I'm in Charleston and I also have issues getting my wort to pitching temperature. I can usually get it to 70 or so with a immersion chiller, so I put the fermenter in my fermentation chamber (mini fridge) and pitch the next morning.

So after some tinkering with ideas (and running out of beer!) I decided to try and brew a batch. Debated between 1 gallon to experiment or five to have some beer if it worked. Went to Betmar here in Columbia and build a remake of the Blonde that turned out reall well.

Brewing went well, my wort chiller I build worked very well. I bought some extra vinyl tubing on the hose end and ran it through an ice chest before going to the IC. Temps dropped to 75 in about 15-20 minutes. I then shook it real well and placed the carboy into a Rubbermaid container sitting over an air duct. I filled the container with water to the level of the beer and have been keeping frozen milk jugs on a rotation. The floating thermometer has been between 60-66 degrees every time I check it. I hope the fermentation hasn't gotten too warm. Everything seems to be behaving properly. I will bottle at the end of July and hopefully Labor Day weekend will offer some good results!

I live in SC and I bought a 60 L cooler and fill with water that I put my glass carboy in to help control the temperature. I put the cooler in my guest bathroom. I have a very understanding wife and she loves craft beer too so she isn't mad that I use the guest bathroom. Submerging your carboy in water will help keep the temperature constant. There won't be huge temperature changes. And if you need to cool it down just add some ice.

I can get my wort cooled down to about 80-85* then I'll put it in my carboy. Then I put my carboy in the cooler to cool it down enough before I pitch my yeast.

Hope this helps.

Hey guys, my plan seemed to work. Beer was sampled tonight - turned out great. Glad to know I will not be slowed by hot weather anymore! Now if I only had more carboys - and space.

I've had this problem too, I'm in Myrtle Beach in this apartment and we keep the AC at 75 -- for my first batch the inside of the fermenter actually hit 85 degrees! I had no idea it was that bad until I started doing some reading on the subject. I played around with a swamp cooler, keeping the fermenter in a plastic tub half-full of icewater, and I had some success that way in lowering the temps (actually TOO much success, you have to be careful you don't add too much ice) but it wasn't the most elegant solution.

I found the most elegant solution. There's an insulated bag that's big enough for my 6.5gal fermenting bucket (and then some, honestly this thing is huge) and all you have to do is cycle through frozen 2-liter bottles to maintain your temps every day. I just brewed a Hefeweizen at sub-70 temperatures for an entire week just dropping in new frozen bottles every day.

At first I did three bottles to keep the temp down during the initial furious fermentation, then as it died down I dropped it down to one, and heading into the last couple of days I'm going to let the temp come back up so the yeast can finish cleaning up in there before I bottle next week.

Check it out!