How to keep a fermenter cool in the summer

Alright, I am still somewhat of a newbie here. How do you all keep your fermenters within the temperature limits during the summer? It has been somewhat cool here this past week and I have my Ale Pail in a room with both windows open and a fan blowing on it. It is just at the top of the temperature limit. If it gets any warmer, I'm not sure what else to do.

Well... call me a lucky F*cka but it always stays well withing nice brewing temps range in my basement during hot summer weather, so i just put all my beer in process down there and everything goes fine.

Keep the fan going, only put the fermenter in a tub (such as a plastic storage bin or a keg tub) with maybe 6 or 8 inches of water. Put an old t-shirt over the fermenter with the bottom of it in the water so that the water will wick up into the t-shirt. Toss a couple plastic liter bottles of ice in there, and switch them out every day.

The cold water and the evaporation of the water in the t-shirt will cool the fermenter by several degrees.

Put a stick-on strip thermometer on the out side of the tub just below the water line, and it'll read pretty close to the beer temperature.

I generally keep them in a tub of water and will exchange out frozen bottles based on the temp listed on the fermometer... you could try searching for "swamp cooler"; that is basically what I use.

I ferment in my bedroom (I'm single) and just bought a one room air conditioner. Leave it on when I go to work, at night its cool enough with out the AC.

I used to ferment in the basement, but where I live now there is no basement.

David

I have an old ice chest that my fermenter fits into perfectly. I put the fermenter in, fill the chest with 10" or so of water and use frozen bottles of water dropped in the water in the chest to regulate the temperature. With my setup, one bottle in the morning and another in the evening keeps the water in the chest between 65 and 68 degrees. Just monitor it frequently until you get the routine down. I cover the top of the fermenter with a towel to act as an insulator and keep the ice chest in a dark closet. Works for me...

I have read alot about guys building a wooden box and placing insulation inside of it , if the box gets too hot , they place a frozen 1- gal jug of water in the box and it usually brings it back to correct temps.. I personally plan to build myself one , i am in FL and its bloddy hot here , my temps fluxuate 10-25degtrees and i have had enough

mageerc said:

I have an old ice chest that my fermenter fits into perfectly. I put the fermenter in, fill the chest with 10" or so of water and use frozen bottles of water dropped in the water in the chest to regulate the temperature. With my setup, one bottle in the morning and another in the evening keeps the water in the chest between 65 and 68 degrees. Just monitor it frequently until you get the routine down. I cover the top of the fermenter with a towel to act as an insulator and keep the ice chest in a dark closet. Works for me...

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Same here, when I'm not camping I have a coleman xtreme that I can fit two bucket fermenters in at a time, I fill it with water 2-3 days before brewing to allow the water to cool (in the summer our water is hot as hell here) then I place some frozen water bottles in it untill it is about 65 degrees. After I pitch my yeast I leave the fermenter at room temp for about an hour, then into the water bath it goes. I also point a fan at it sometimes the fan alone will keep the water cool enough to not have to worry much about adding bottles of frozen water. Has worked surprisingly well for me. I hate the winter, but it sure makes fermenting easier here!

I just started using a chest freezer with a temp controller. I used a watter bath and frozen 2L bottles before but it is just too hot here now. I can lager in the summer woot!

Fridge off of Craig's List. Best $50 spent on brewing yet.

Watch CL and you will eventually find people asking you to come get a free fridge or freezer. Just make sure it works and all you need is a temp controller. Most of the other methods are a PITA compared to a simple fridge/freezer box job.

Rick500 said:

Keep the fan going, only put the fermenter in a tub (such as a plastic storage bin or a keg tub) with maybe 6 or 8 inches of water. Put an old t-shirt over the fermenter with the bottom of it in the water so that the water will wick up into the t-shirt. Toss a couple plastic liter bottles of ice in there, and switch them out every day.

The cold water and the evaporation of the water in the t-shirt will cool the fermenter by several degrees.

Put a stick-on strip thermometer on the out side of the tub just below the water line, and it'll read pretty close to the beer temperature.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the idea! I just did a search for this topic because I had the same question. I didn't want to spend a lot of money of electricity running the AC in my apartment all the time, but yet I didn't want bad beer either. This solution seems perfect.

If I don't have a stick on strip thermometer handy, is there any problem if I just drop a water proof thermometer into the water to monitor the temp? Or will that be too inaccurate of a method of measuring the temp of the beer? Or just in general, what will be the best way to monitor what the proper temp should be... because the water will be much cooler than the air temperature in my brewing closet and I assume the temp of my beer will be a different temperature as well.

Also keep a look out for a wine fridge. My 32 bottle cooler with some blocks on the bottom ( to get over the hump) fits a carboy perfectly.

Son of Ferment Chiller!!!

Success!
Thanks all for your suggestions. I bought 2 tubs with rope handles. They look like oversized beach pails that you would use to put beers on ice. I stuck a fermenter in each, filled them with water to just below the beer level and put a t-shirt over them to wick the water (and block the sunlight). I kept water bottles in the freezer and swapped them out daily. Just kegged both batches and christened my new double tap fridge conversion kegerator. Now I have an IPA & an Arrogant Bastard clone on tap in the house! Can't get any better than this!!

Octang said:

Thanks for the idea! I just did a search for this topic because I had the same question. I didn't want to spend a lot of money of electricity running the AC in my apartment all the time, but yet I didn't want bad beer either. This solution seems perfect.

If I don't have a stick on strip thermometer handy, is there any problem if I just drop a water proof thermometer into the water to monitor the temp? Or will that be too inaccurate of a method of measuring the temp of the beer? Or just in general, what will be the best way to monitor what the proper temp should be... because the water will be much cooler than the air temperature in my brewing closet and I assume the temp of my beer will be a different temperature as well.

Click to expand...

A thermo in the water will be pretty close to the wort temp. Close enough to know if you need to swap out the ice bottles.

Isuggest getting a fermometer (the stick on thermo) for each of your carboys. They are only $2 and work well. I have saison in a heat bath currently. The fermometr is reading 81 f and my digital temp probe in the water says 82 f.

swamp cooler is the cheapest and easiest low tech solution. Just do a search and you will find plenty of info

This thread is super old but I have a question that is within the same realm... I just brewed my first AG IPA on Sunday. I thought my basement would be cool enough for proper fermentation temp but this week it turns out it's around 80 degrees down there. Today I put the carboy into a water bath with an ice pack. My question is will those first three days at 80 ruin my beer? I know I will soon find out but I'd like some thoughts from more experienced brewers.

The first few days are the most important for temp control. Your likely to get strong esters and fusel alcohols.

CaseyHeartBeers said:

This thread is super old but I have a question that is within the same realm... I just brewed my first AG IPA on Sunday. I thought my basement would be cool enough for proper fermentation temp but this week it turns out it's around 80 degrees down there. Today I put the carboy into a water bath with an ice pack. My question is will those first three days at 80 ruin my beer? I know I will soon find out but I'd like some thoughts from more experienced brewers.

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In the future you might want to start your own, new thread. You'll get a lot more quality responses that way.

The first 3 days of fermentation are probably the most critical when it comes to fermentation temps. It's highly likely that the damage has already been done...

i'm not very experienced but i do think that i can taste a difference with high temps early in fermentation. they aren't all bad and i'm guessing that if you have a pretty hoppy beer they may not be very noticeable. When i put a stick-on thermometer on my carboy, the temperature is typically about 10degrees above ambient in those first few days so i've decided that i will always cool my carboy for early fermentation. i love my cool brewing 'bag' with a frozen 2 liter bottle or two make it pretty easy. So not much real help but I guess I'd go with it and expect it to be ok. Call it a good experiment.

The only times I've seen 10 degrees over ambient in my chest freezer was with big (1.080+) ales (ambient at 60F, fermenting at 70.) Normal ales and lagers are 2-4 degrees over at peak. A water bath keeps it much closer to water temp. I use a water bath in the cooler months. Summers are always 100+ here but my water bath can ferment lagers from late November to February. They don't get much ale time though.

I did not read the whole thread since I live in Atlanta and my wife wants the beer stuff in the garage I was forced to get a fermenation chamber or my beer would just suffer. What I did is buy a mini fridge off of CL for $40 and then added a collar to the front of it to extend it out so I could put in 2 buckets. You can find a lot of DIY links on this but it works great as long as you insulate the inside, and put on the magnetic tape so the door will create a good deal. All in all it only cost me $60 plus the johnson controller that I installed. If you can find a chest freezer that also works weel and might not have to do any modifications.

To me doing it for $60 is way better than screwing around with a towel because I can set it and forget it.

Small chest freazer with temp control.

I did the same as the previous poster but flipped mine on its side. Works great! Don't forget to flip your compressor appropriately. I've done over 7 double batches with no issues.

Used fridge on CL: $100.

Ebay temp controller: $40.

Perfectly fermented beers all year round: priceless.

This was $50 on CL. I just fitted it with fermenters. I use it for kegerator and my Magic chef 7.2 to ferment in.

My beer fridge was comendered for a fermentation chamber. Running the ac at 72 deg all day was getting expensive. I brewed up a double batch so I can keg both if them at the same time then I will turn the temp down low and use it as my kegorator fridge. In the mean time my kitchen fridge will have less room for food to make room for some bottles of beer. Ahh the single life!

I do realize that when my kegs are kicked I am going to be beer less for a while but I do have a lot of bottled beer I can drink then. I need a deep freezer for a fermentation chamber...