Low-tech Fermentation Cooler?

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TheFlyingSparge

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So it's still a bit warm for good fermentation around me (70's day/50's night) so I'm trying something new to keep the temp cool during the day. I really have no idea if it'll work. Found some big old buckets (Walmart), filled them part-way with water and submerged my 5gal fermenters in them. Hoping the water surrounding my fermenters will draw heat away as it evaporates.

Thought? Anybody try something like this? If it works I'll report back.
 
I'm located in Arizona where it quite hot and this is what I am doing and so far it seems like it is working for me! You can also freeze a few water bottles and throw those in the water and replace those daily. We also have a fan blowing on it if we need it even cooler
 
Yes, that's called a swamp cooler. You can usually get the water to sit about 10 degrees lower than ambient air temperature without ice. I use ice. I check the temperature 3 times a day and add ice as necessary to keep the temperature where I want it.
 
How are ya'll checking temp during fermentation in these swamp coolers? Thermostrip along the side of the bucket? Dip a sanitized thermometer? Infrared gun? Just curious...

I use an old Magic Chef freezer with a johnson controls controller and I just look at my thermostrip during fermentation.

Being submerged in water might alter the temp on the strip?
 
How are ya'll checking temp during fermentation in these swamp coolers? Thermostrip along the side of the bucket? Dip a sanitized thermometer? Infrared gun? Just curious...

good question. I just went to check on the fermenters and realized this would be a problem. That said, for my purposes, I'm going to assume the temp is roughly 5-10 degrees lower than ambient. Considering ambient has been around 70ish, I'm not that worried.

Normally In Summer I ferment in my kegerator using a temp-tolerant yeast. Holds 2 5gal buckets. However, right now my kegerator is full of beer.
 
There were some definite heat spells this summer, indeed. What I did to keep my fermentation at a steady 68F was set my 5gal. carboy into a large turkey roasting pant and then fill up the pan about 5 inches with water. I would then freeze two 2 liter soda bottles full of water and exchange them in and out of the pan once or twice a day depending if all the ice had melted or not. The bottles sitting and melting in the shallow water kept it around 50-60 degrees which kept the fermenting vessel at a steady 68F. The only down side to this method is checking and freezing the bottles daily... ho hum. It worked for me.
 
I have two thermostips on my fermenter one in the water and one in the middle. And I only have the water going up the bucket maybe 5-6 inches.

Edit: so basically what he said! ^^
 
Wet an old t-shirt and put it over the fermenter so the ends of the shirt hang into the water tub. The water will wick up the shirt and cool the fermenter by evaporation.
 
Wet an old t-shirt and put it over the fermenter so the ends of the shirt hang into the water tub. The water will wick up the shirt and cool the fermenter by evaporation.

THAT's a swamp cooler- using evaporative cooling. same reason sweat cools you, it requires (heat) energy to go from liquid to gas. that heat comes out of your beer. phase transition!! ice to water or water to vapor. wort to beer. sobriety to pleasantness
 
Honestly I have used the wet tee shirt method and the swamp cooler method too. Of the two the swamp cooler can give you a much lower ambient to wort temp. I have found that if all you need is a few degeee maybe 2-3 degree difference form ambient the wet tee shirt is excellent and effective but if you want to have lets say a 15 degree or more difference swamp cooler are the shiznat I have brought the fermenter temps down into the 50's when my ambient was 76 degrees !!!
 
I am out of the house the majority of the week, so i just put the fermenter in a tub of water with a wet towel wrapped around it, and add no ice the whole time, would this do anything? If I could shed a few degrees off it'd be worth it to me...

I keep the house at about 73-75 degrees, so if I could get it lower, I'd be happy. But if I'm not adding ice, would it be worth it?
 
chungking said:
I am out of the house the majority of the week, so i just put the fermenter in a tub of water with a wet towel wrapped around it, and add no ice the whole time, would this do anything? If I could shed a few degrees off it'd be worth it to me...

I keep the house at about 73-75 degrees, so if I could get it lower, I'd be happy. But if I'm not adding ice, would it be worth it?

Yes it would do something ..... It is called evaporative cooling. It's a pretty standard method of cooling before refrigeration was common. You will not hit swamp cooler with ice added differences but you can drop the temp by about appx. 5 degrees or so also of I could make a reccomendation it would be to add a fan blowing on the tee shirt / Carboy this would definitely help cool it more/faster.
 
What I have found that works well is just having a A/C unit in my window and keeping the door to the room closed. Just having the A/C set at 68 keeps it at 68-70 degrees depending on what outside temps are currently running. Some one had also suggested to me that I just set my a/c unit up in a mini fermentation chamber but I pefer a slightly chilled room so this method kills two birds with one stone.
 
Well, I just want a low maintenance method for getting as cool as possible. I really don't want frigs or fans or ac units which will add to electric bills...just a cheap easy solution.

I guess I could add ice, but since I am gone half the day all the time, wouldn't this cause some temp swings, which would be unwanted?
 
I realize you're trying to keep down the fuss but if you put your bucket in a large red clay pot and fill the void with sand and add water you have what you could call a Zeer Pot Fermenter. You may actually find it will drop the temp too much. Zeer pots can get the inside temp down to as low as 50 degrees with this method.
 
Well, I just want a low maintenance method for getting as cool as possible. I really don't want frigs or fans or ac units which will add to electric bills...just a cheap easy solution.

I guess I could add ice, but since I am gone half the day all the time, wouldn't this cause some temp swings, which would be unwanted?

You're adding ice to the water bath, not to the beer itself, so the temp won't swing much. 20 gallons of water and 2 plastic buckets can release or suck up a lot of heat without changing the temp a whole lot. Even if your yeast temp does fluctuate a few degrees, it's really not a big deal as long as it's always within the right range. Yeast aren't nearly as fragile as we make them out to be.
 
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