Hello all, I'm new to the forums and brewing in general. I've been thinking about getting into it for years and finally made the leap. Two weeks ago I had a friend that is tested in the field help me out. We didn't use a thermometer to measure the boiling temperature or the hydrometer since he pretty much has a "brown" thumb in this department and knew from experience when to turn the heat down.
So we put the wort in the plastic tub that came with my kit, but the problem is - is that my apartment in the city right now gets a bit hot. With the ceiling fan on, when I come back from work at night the temp in the apartment is about 75 F - my instructions say the wort should be 68 -72 F. To counter the temp issue, I used a simple MacGuyver set up of: Placing the plastic bucket in two garbage bags (to keep the water out in my later steps), then I place that in a keg tub filled with water. I then place a 2-4 frozen water bottles in the tub to keep the temp down. The problem is, is that there's no real good way to keep that constant. Anything I place in there is just going to keep the temp down low which will then steadily rise. I can't exactly get a time release set up. And I can't have anyone come up to my apartment to check on it while I'm at work.
I've heard someone suggest that I put styrofoam around and under the keg tub set up to help keep the cold in. I also was thinking of getting a mini dorm fridge used in conjunction with a digital thermometer set up... but that's kind of expensive and I'd like to keep costs down.
Sorry for the long explanation, but could anyone offer me any ideas? I don't exactly want to wait a month / month and a half till the temp drops here in Chicago.
So we put the wort in the plastic tub that came with my kit, but the problem is - is that my apartment in the city right now gets a bit hot. With the ceiling fan on, when I come back from work at night the temp in the apartment is about 75 F - my instructions say the wort should be 68 -72 F. To counter the temp issue, I used a simple MacGuyver set up of: Placing the plastic bucket in two garbage bags (to keep the water out in my later steps), then I place that in a keg tub filled with water. I then place a 2-4 frozen water bottles in the tub to keep the temp down. The problem is, is that there's no real good way to keep that constant. Anything I place in there is just going to keep the temp down low which will then steadily rise. I can't exactly get a time release set up. And I can't have anyone come up to my apartment to check on it while I'm at work.
I've heard someone suggest that I put styrofoam around and under the keg tub set up to help keep the cold in. I also was thinking of getting a mini dorm fridge used in conjunction with a digital thermometer set up... but that's kind of expensive and I'd like to keep costs down.
Sorry for the long explanation, but could anyone offer me any ideas? I don't exactly want to wait a month / month and a half till the temp drops here in Chicago.