Fermintation temps, in warm months

[flexfit115]

My question is due to living in the south and getting warm early, most from what I have seen ales ferment up to 70 to 72 degrees at the most. I keep my fermenter in my house in the a/c but my house sits at 74. With out turning up my a/c how do I keep my brew cool enough or is a few degrees not a big deal? P.s. I am doing a nut brown honey ale. Thanks for the advice.

 

[Gduck]

The most ecconomical way is to go with a swamp cooler. Basically a large plastic bucket whatever you're fermenting in can be put in, filled with water. The water will help mitigate temperature fluctuations. To help bring the temperature around fill two liter bottles with water, freeze them, and toss a couple in the bucket of water that your fermenter is sitting in. Replace the frozen bottles as they warm up.

There are many variations of this like using a t-shirt to wick up the water and have evaporation aid in the cooling process. I only used one once and it worked well, but then I got a nice temperature controller as a gift and built a fermentation box out of insulated board and a small frdige along with the temp controller so I can keep my fermentation at whatever temp I'd like it to be. But the swamp cooler is the cheap way. I picked up the big bucket from something like Walmart or Target for under 10 bucks.

 

[meat803]

Put a tight fitting T-shirt over your primary carboy. Doest have to be tight but a loose shirt will have pockets of air that act as insulation and lessen the effect.

Make an ice ring out using a bundt cake pan bought from the store for a few bucks. Turn it upside down and run the faucet over it. Ice ring will plop out.

Wet the Tshirt .Doesn't hurt to add a little bleach to keep the mildew at bay. You dont have to add bleach every time just maybe once or twice during the entire process. I use my girlfriends counter top bleach spray. Squirt one shot into a glass, fill with water and dump on shirt.

Initially wet the Tshirt, then put the ice ring around the neck of the carboy. As the ring melts, it will supply the tshirt with fresh water. The evaporation of the water in combination with the ice will drop your carboy temp anywhere from 5 to 10 degrees. My house in GA is kept at about 70-71 and I only have to replace the ice ring twice a day. Keeps my ferm temps at mid 60's without much effort. I keep my carboys in the spare bathroom bathtub so water run off and bleach arent a concern. I wet the shirt once initially then just replace ice ring before and after work. Less than a minute a day maintenance for mid to low 60's in a house kept at 70ish. Easy enough.

I have also used a bucket as my primary with a t shirt and ice piled on top. Same theory of melting ice and wet tshirt. Added random water to keep shirt saturated. Temp dropped to 58 end halted my fermentation early. Not the desired effect but shows you the effectiveness of this method.


Hope this helps.

 

[Rbeckett]

T-shirt with a fan blowing across it with cool tap water alone will cool it signigantly. We put a water bottle in a sock and hung it off the turret in iraq and then wet it. The water stayed pleasingly cool even in 120+ degree days. Evaporative cooling workd great and is free. The drier it is the better it works and a gentle continous breeze is better than a howling windstorm too. If the cooling isn't sufficient, add a couple of quart bottles of frozen water and switch them out once or twice a day. That will definately keep your brew at lager temp easily. Hope this helps, I live in the south too and it is a PITA to find a way to cool stuff cheap.
Bob

 

[flexfit115]

Do you think a few degrees will make a big difference?

 

[lowlife]

Just pick some yeast that dont mind warm temps. Its all dependent on the yeast you use. For instance nottingham (in my opinion) tastes like complete garbage over 71. But Duvel strong golden ale yeast like warm temps.

 

[TarheelBrew13]

Just pick some yeast that dont mind warm temps. Its all dependent on the yeast you use. For instance nottingham (in my opinion) tastes like complete garbage over 71. But Duvel strong golden ale yeast like warm temps.

This is the pay to go IMO. Check out the Wyeast - White Labs sites for recommended fermentation temps of yeasts.

 

[flexfit115]

That's what I have the Nottingham, I was going to get white labs wlp051. The guy at my HB store talked me out of it.

 

[flexfit115]

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[fvirzi]

i have a wyeast direct pitch activator( north west ale ) from my local home brew store. new to this but just noticed that the mfg date on it is feb 6th. should i be worried? sorry i know its off topic but i was going to brew soon. thanks