ghetto fermentation temperature control

[Jack]

My last two beers are good, but I think they'd be way better if I had better control over fermentation temperature. My goal over the next month is to make something that will help keep fermentation temperatures about 5-10° F cooler than the ambient temperature in my apartment. SWMBO vetoed a fridge/freezer until we get a house.

Which ghetto fermentation temperature control device should I build?

Option 1:
Buy a big cooler that I can put my glass carboy into. The advantage is that it would be an easy sell to get a cooler ("for when we travel, honey") but the disadvantage is that I'd have to change out the water frequently. Also, I'd have to figure out what temperature the water on the outside should be to get the beer at the desired temperature. A cooler seems to be better than a big tub because it is insulated.

Option 2:
Get a five or ten gallon Igloo-type cooler and drill a hole for an airlock. I could stick my wort chiller in it once or twice a day (before and after work?) to bring the temperature down to what I want. I could fill my bottling bucket with sanitizing solution to keep the chiller clean. When primary fermentation is complete, I'd rack the beer into a glass carboy to better protect it from oxygen. The plus side is that I wouldn't have to bail warm water out of a cooler and replace it with cool water. I think I'd still have to do a feasability study with water to determine temperature change versus time relationship before I went ahead full-steam with this idea.

What would you do?

 

[Petho]

I am interested in the responses. When the weather warms up it is going to be more difficult to maintain 68deg. I have thought of a cooler with a hole in the top for the carboy to poke out of and use dry ice to maintain some cool?

 

[BierMuncher]

$11 and this will get you an 8-10 degree drop.

 

[wilserbrewer]

Water bath will be the easiest and cheapest. Fermenting in a cooler will only hold in the heat you are trying to get rid of. Sticiking your immersion chiller in your fermenting wort is a recipe for disaster IMO. That being said...get a cooler, it will not take much ice to lower temps a bit (5-10 degrees) should be easy. Fot that matter, any container providing a water bath will help to dissipate the heat of fermentation. During the warmer months, I simply use a tub and water bath and monitor temps, for the first few days of fermentation which are the most critical, I will pitch a pitcher of ice from the fridge to keep things in check.

 

[Dog House Brew]

Wet shirt is simple, but so great at bringing the temps down. My 12 gallons if Imp Porter came down 8 degrees with a wrapped towel and a quick mist after making my coffee every morning.

 

[tunemarshall]

Combine the two,

Get a cooler to fit your fermenter in then wrap your fermenter in PEX tubing that sticks out the top of the cooler. Pump cold water (or something) through the PEX until you reach temp. and it should hold for quite a while in a cooler. Check it once a day and adjust as needed. I imagine an aquarium pump sitting in a sink full of ice water would be more than enough.

Just a thought,

 

[Moonpile]

$8 rubbermaid rope-handled bin. Take the rope handles off, b/c if you lift this even half full of water by the handles they'll eventually pull through.

Now put your carboy in there. Fill it with water to just below the level of the wort in the carboy. Rotate frozen bottles of water through as necessary. The old t-shirt or towel swamp cooler trick works great too and a fan can turbo charge that method.

The rubbermaid tub is incredibly useful for sanitizing stuff and washing bottles too!

 

[OneShoeBrew]

This works like magic for me:

I use a 60 qt Igloo Ice Cube cooler that I picked up at WalMart for about $25 USD. Disconnect the lid. You'll need a small square metal baking pan that's just small enough to fit under your fermenting bucket. Put the pan in the cooler. Surround the pan with about 2" of ice. Put fermenting bucket on the pan and add another few handfuls of ice (not too much). Cover everything with a thick beach blanket (let the airlock poke through). Change the melted water for new ice every 12 - 24 hours (the outside will mold otherwise). It'll hold 65 F without a problem.

 

[Captain_Bigelow]

I have a cheap $7 plastic storage bin from Target. I just filled it up with 6 inches of water and put my fermentor bucket in there. I put a wet t-shirt wrapped around the bucket and a few frozen water bottles.

This simple and cheap method does great. My internal house temperature is 80 degrees right now, but the temperature on my bucket is 64.

 

[CrystallineEntity]

I use a cube cooler as well. I haven't had to use any water yet, just frozen bottles once or twice a day. I just wrap a towel over the top with the airlock sticking out. Gets to low 60's if i put too much ice in.

-Aaron

 

[thelorax121]

Swamp cooler my friend. And the rubbermaids are only like 5 bucks at Lowes or Homedepot

 

[ghpeel]

I've got a big 12-13(?) gal or so rectangular cooler. My main carboy (6.5 gal) sits right in it. I fill with water to about half up the carboy and change out some freezer packs twice a day. Temps stay in mid 60s.

But when I move beer to my secondary fermentor (5 gal carboy, which is a little shorter), I can drain the cooler, turn it up so its standing on its end, and then slide the carboy in. The carboy plus a regular airlock just barely are short enough to fit inside. Suprisingly, without water, I can keep the temps in the low 50's if I change the ice packs twice a day (they sit on the sides of the carboy right before the neck narrows).