Simple cooling trick

I'm sure I'm not the first to think of this. I'm posting this in case someone is looking for an easy way to cool a primary now that warmer months are here.

I can't get a ferm chamber, so I've been trying the wet wrap and fan trick. My temps were staying around 72 in a basement that is currently 74. I have two bar towels wrapped around the primary, held in place by two long rubber bands. I had tried adding ice under the towels, but it became a puddle too fast. Light bulb moment!

We have a few of those refreezable ice blocks, the ones that are about 1x3x5. I stuffed 3 of those under the towels, evenly spaced, and rewet the towels. After about one hour, the fermometer is showing 68!

Since I have several of these, I'll just keep rotating them. What would be cool is some kind if belt with pockets to hold them. Hmm...

Try placing the fermenter in a tub and filling the tub with water. then put ice or ice packs in the water. The thermal mass of the water will help keep temps more stable.

A lot of people do this in the form of freezing 2L soda bottles.

Menards has tubs on sale for 4.99..... Just put my primary in one to drop it down in temperature this exact way

Yeah the "swamp cooler" way is the cheap way I like to do it as well. Can keep it way down with the temp in the house being set on 74. I checked on a batch I had going yesterday and it was down to 59. Little less changing of my ice bottles it seems!

My cooling chamber is "fancy" I guess, compared to a fan and wet towel, but here it is:



I took off the regular lid (which is hollow) so I can still use it as a wheeled cooler if I want, and made a new lid out of foam insulation, four layers thick, that fits the cooler. I just cut it with a dremel. I put water in it, up to the level of the beer, and then change out frozen water bottles as needed. I keep a floating thermometer in the water bath to check the temperature as needed. The water/ice bath works great, and I only change the bottles out every couple of days in my 80ish degree house in the summer.

I'm using ported Better Bottles, so I'm reluctant to do the submersion in a tub. Perhaps submerged in Star San is the compromise.

I submerge mine in water in one of those rope handle tubs. I have a large stash of frozen 20 oz water bottles, change two out several times a day and it keeps my temps around 65-68.

1 gallon batches so a mop bucket does wonders...plus my basement rarely gets above 65, even in the summer.

I simply set the fermenter in a tub in my basement and half fill w/ water, I simply add about a pound of ice from the kitchen icemaker as needed to keep the temps out of the 70's. Easier for me than adding and removing and refreezing bottles. I also only do this for the first several days until fermentation is almost complete and the kreusen has dropped.

It doesn't take much effort to knock the temp down 5-8 degrees, and with 8 gallons of beer and about five gallons in the tub the temps remain rather stable.

During hot weather, I use the same tub to chill the wort the last 10-20 degrees by adding the whole bin from the kitchen icemaker, or if I'm thinking ahead, I will bag up the kitchen ice a day or two ahead of brewing, so I will have two batches or bags of ice so the wort can easily be dropped the last 20-30 degrees prior to pitching yeast. I find this ghetto method easier than pumping ice water through a chiller.

duckredbeard said:

I'm sure I'm not the first to think of this. I'm posting this in case someone is looking for an easy way to cool a primary now that warmer months are here.

I can't get a ferm chamber, so I've been trying the wet wrap and fan trick. My temps were staying around 72 in a basement that is currently 74. I have two bar towels wrapped around the primary, held in place by two long rubber bands. I had tried adding ice under the towels, but it became a puddle too fast. Light bulb moment!

We have a few of those refreezable ice blocks, the ones that are about 1x3x5. I stuffed 3 of those under the towels, evenly spaced, and rewet the towels. After about one hour, the fermometer is showing 68!

Since I have several of these, I'll just keep rotating them. What would be cool is some kind if belt with pockets to hold them. Hmm...

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Sounds like a lot of work to drop ~2 degrees..... as others have suggested, why not just use a swamp cooler. Less work and better temp control. I have a beer in one now, room temp's ~71, fermenter temp's ~67 and I haven't added ice bottles in over 48 hours. That's ~5 degrees with no effort, and I had that fermenter at ~63 a couple days ago when it was hot hot outside (room temp was ~75) with very little effort and that was during high krausen.

This is awesome! Thank you for the great ideas!

I suppose because I'm a truck driver and on the road 2-3 weeks at a time, I'm just gonna have to buy a cooling system for my fermenter huh? My house stays around 68-70.

Meatyboy said:

I suppose because I'm a truck driver and on the road 2-3 weeks at a time, I'm just gonna have to buy a cooling system for my fermenter huh? My house stays around 68-70.

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I would recommend a fermentation fridge to anybody serious about making beer. The fridge you can get cheap or even free on criagslist. People seam to throw away perfectly functional fridges all the time when they remodel or just upgrade their appliances.

The temp controller is the expensive part. I recommend the digital models and if your really serious the dual output are the best. That way you can heat and cool from the same controller. Dial it in and you can have the fermenter consistently within one degree of any temp you want.