Tub - O - Water ferm chamber

I've been using my closet under my stairs in my Town home as a " fermentation chamber ". The temps have been decent but I want more stability in temperature. I put my fermenters in a 30 gallon storage tote and filled with 58 degree water with a tad bit of bleach to hopefully prevent water funkiness.



I had to put a six pack that is carbonating on top of the bucket. It gained some buoyancy ....

yep, that's how i do it. cheapest way to control temps, works pretty d@mn well, too!

I've been doing the same thing for years. It is actually really stable temperature-wise.

I am, however, gradually moving my whole operation out of the house and into the garage, and in the process I plan to build an actual fermentation chamber so as to be able to ferment more than one thing at a time, as well as have a temperature-controlled area for long term conditioning, and lagering via direct chilling with a coil.

I have an off topic question.. ..... Has anyone else noticed that the water makes the fermometer stickers not work correctly, or even ruin them? When mine gets wet in the tub it lights up the whole thing like a Christmas tree...

Stauffbier said:

I have an off topic question.. ..... Has anyone else noticed that the water makes the fermometer stickers not work correctly, or even ruin them? When mine gets wet in the tub it lights up the whole thing like a Christmas tree...

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yep, it kills 'em. i stopped using those stick ons awhile ago, not accurate at all, IMO. good thing is, a floating thermometer works nice in the water bath. and you can read the inside temp with a temp probe in a thermowell.

NordeastBrewer77 said:

you can read the inside temp with a temp probe in a thermowell.

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Can you explain in more detail what a temp probe and thermowell are? By any chance do you have a photo of this set-up?

Stauffbier said:

Can you explain in more detail what a temp probe and thermowell are? By any chance do you have a photo of this set-up?

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look in the pics on my profile page. i have pics of a cheap, easy DIY thermowell. (credit goes to another HBT member for the killer idea). as far as a temp probe, no pics of those, but it's the little digital thermometer or temp controller with a metal probe to read temps. most LHBS carry them, if not Midwest and the other big guys carry them.

I've found only filling to a little over half way up the container provides enough temperature stability. That keeps the stick on thermometer out of the water.

I think they are plenty accurate. Mine agrees well enough with my probe thermometer. Certainly they are good enough to stay in the right ballpark. Besides, highly accurate measurements are not much use if you can't control what you are measuring. Metering in frozen water bottles, I can keep the temps pretty darn constant, even if they are off a degree or two.

The tub of water does work great. I used to do that before my fermentation chamber.

I still use it in the winter, but use it the other way.... use it to heat. I love Belgians and right now my basement temps are around 58 degrees. I use the tub and an aquarium heater. Great temp control to within .5 degree. I can even easily ramp up the temp slowly to help them finish.

The tubs are the way to go. I have two of the rope handle ones from Wally World. About $6 a piece. I also use a floating aquarium thermometor since they are easier to pull out and read than trying to read the stick on ones in a dark closet. I am currently secondary conditioning a strong scotch ale and have been able to keep the temps at about 46 degrees by swapping out 2 frozen 2liter water bottles every 12 hours. There was a thread not to long ago where someone was actually lagering in one of these. Would take alot of frozen bottles though.

BigTerp said:

There was a thread not to long ago where someone was actually lagering in one of these. Would take alot of frozen bottles though.

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That might have been me. I just bottled a lager about 2 weeks ago that I lagered in a tub with ice jugs. It does indeed take a lot of bottles, but I kept it at 39F for 6 weeks..

Stauffbier said:

That might have been me. I just bottled a lager about 2 weeks ago that I lagered in a tub with ice jugs. It does indeed take a lot of bottles, but I kept it at 39F for 6 weeks..

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HA!! Whas that the one with the picture of the Mount Everest of frozen bottles all over the carboy? If so, well done!!

BigTerp said:

HA!! Whas that the one with the picture of the Mount Everest of frozen bottles all over the carboy? If so, well done!!

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haha, yup! That was me!

NordeastBrewer77 said:

yep, that's how i do it. cheapest way to control temps, works pretty d@mn well, too!

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Could you lager this way or will the temps not get down far enough?

kerant said:

Could you lager this way or will the temps not get down far enough?

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Ok - I didn't read far enough - thanks

kerant said:

Could you lager this way or will the temps not get down far enough?

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kerant said:

Ok - I didn't read far enough - thanks

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i was gonna point that out. Stauffbier just did a lager like this, there's a thread with his pics somewhere around here. i'm planning on lagering an Alt later this month doing the same thing since the weather won't cooperate and let me lager in the garage, it'll be 60 degrees in the next few weeks at this pace.