fermenting in warm temps?

comin up on summer and around where i live it can get up to 100F. i was wondering what techniques i could use to keep my fermenter in check at around 65F. i use fermenting buckets (ale pail), not carboys. someone recommended getting a bucket and filling it up with water and changing it out with with freezer ice packs daily. any suggestions? i dont have the $ for a temp control...

Best thing to do is look for an old fridge or freezer on Craig's list and combine it with a temp controller.

oceanselv said:

Best thing to do is look for an old fridge or freezer on Craig's list and combine it with a temp controller.

Click to expand...

that would be ideal if i had the $, im looking for some ghetto techniques...

Here's mine:


I made a new lid out of foam, to replace the hollow plastic lid that came with the lid. I use the old lid, still, when I want to use it as a wheeled cooler. I fill it with water, and add frozen water bottles as needed to keep the temperature in the mid-60s. I use a floating thermometer to monitor the temperature of the water bath, as it's really close to the temperature of the fermenting beer too.

YooperBrew said:

Here's mine:

I made a new lid out of foam, to replace the hollow plastic lid that came with the lid. I use the old lid, still, when I want to use it as a wheeled cooler. I fill it with water, and add frozen water bottles as needed to keep the temperature in the mid-60s. I use a floating thermometer to monitor the temperature of the water bath, as it's really close to the temperature of the fermenting beer too.

Click to expand...

nice one yooper:rockin:, the only thing is im using ale pail buckets instead of glass carboys

zodiak3000 said:

nice one yooper:rockin:, the only thing is im using ale pail buckets instead of glass carboys

Click to expand...

Yeah, I am too, most of the time now. Just gotta change the opening, that's all!

I live in Hawaii so I know what you are going through. I use a $12 round trash can from home depot, fill it with water and swap out frozen water bottles every 8 hours or so. My room temp is usually around 80 - 85 and I found that 3 frozen 16oz water bottles will keep it under 70. Something insulated would work much better than my trash can, but mine is cheap and has the ghetto factor you were mentioning you wanted.

I use a rubbermaid tub full of water and switch out frozen water bottles a couple times a day. I don't use a lid on it so that it can sit under a ceiling fan and cool off that way. I find it never gets warmer than 72, which is reasonable when it's 90F out.

I basically do the same thing, I dont' fill the tub with water it's ony about 4-5 inches deep.

mines in the basement, stays at a pretty constant 65 down there, but I'm starting to get the impression that basements arent that common in every part of the country.

hows the humidity out there? if its usually pretty low, you can go the bucket in a tub of water with a shirt and fan swamp cooler method. If its more humid, that wont work quite as well. Granted, using a swamp cooler inside means more work for you home AC, but you dont have a large up front cost for a fridge.

FYI, if you can find an old fridge for cheap/free, you can use an old thermostat as a temp controller in many situations. There are a few threads about it around

Happy brewing

Doing the same thing as yooper but with beach towels covering the top I'm now cold crashing. Two half gallon frozen bottles switched with two more half gallon frozen bottles twice a day and I'm now too cold for the stick on strip to read.

The Wet Towel Trick is working wonders for me right now. My temp has dropped about 8 degrees F and stayed around there. You just have to keep getting it wet.

I take it back. I've gone from a warm 78 to a nice 66.

gtpro said:

mines in the basement, stays at a pretty constant 65 down there, but I'm starting to get the impression that basements arent that common in every part of the country.

Click to expand...

My apartment IS the basement. When I brewed my porter on Friday, it was nice and cool in there, but at some point over the weekend we hit temperatures in the 90s. Though it took a day and a half for the basement to heat up, it is now damned hot in there and my temp strip was up to 75*F yesterday. I screamed bloody murder.

I'm really babying it now. Bathing it in ice water and whatnot. It's only sort of helping. Yargh. Stupid summer.

wbwagner said:

You just have to keep getting it wet.

Click to expand...

That's what she said?

fightingillini said:

That's what she said?

Click to expand...

haha... I use a huge 120qt coleman cooler. My apartment is sitting around 80 and I just throw a frozen L container in there about twice a day. My 120qt cooler is excessively big, but it will fit two carboys when the time comes. I'm also going to buy a piece of Styrofoam insulation, like yooper's set up, and use that as a lid for better temp control.