Wife vs Fermentation - She always wins.

[jerryodom]

I suppose this happens to the best of brewers. You've worked hard crafting your brew. Thought out your recipe, purchased and prepared your ingredients, cleaned, cooked, pitched and finally the easiest part: stick it in the closet. You warn "do not turn off the heat before you leave for work.".

Then you come home and the house is 55 degrees instead of 65-70. Yeah that airlock is still as a statue.

So what I'm wondering is who here has some tricks they'd like to share on how to manage your temperature when you're limited to your home's central air for climate control? Preferably no alternatives involving divorce or 12 beers and a wife beater t-shirt! :rockin:

 

[Jeffro]

I have a shed... Sort of a mancave if you will...

My brewing hobby doesn't enter the house until it's in a glass and being consumed.

 

[IrregularPulse]

Buy a seconda thermostat, Hang on wall where current one is Run Power ONLY to thermostat. Move current one to inside of closet hook up. She will be satisfied thinking she is turning the heat down, You have sole control over house temps!

Or build a Son of Fermentation Cabinet. Using a heat lamp for heating in winter and ice for cooling in summer.

I have a shed... Sort of a mancave if you will...

My brewing hobby doesn't enter the house until it's in a glass and being consumed.

You have to pour your beers in the shed?

 

[andyb0527]

Put the fermenter in a cooler filled with water and an aquarium heater to keep the water at the proper temp. I also use a small pump to help circulate the water around the carboy. I have also seen people on here make a lid out of foam with a hole in it for the airlock to help keep the heat in.

 

[Blender]

I use a cooler to keep my temps in check. Where I live it is normally to cool it but even when the temperature drops here in the 40's it will maintain in the 60's for days in an unheated storage room. With the fermenter in water the temperature won't fluctuate so rapidly.

For heating there is always the brew belts if that is more convienient.

 

[HalloweenGod]

THe best thing to do is make a insulated box with a heat source. The cheatest thing I can think of would be a big cardboard box lined with with styrofoam with a heating blanket so something like that.

 

[rtfick0]

Embrace lager season for your next batch. I look forward to brewing lagers, fermenting, & lagering in my frigid basement storage room and I brew more frequently during the winter due the fairly limited time frame. It's also easier on energy.

 

[Kriznac]

I use only wood to heat my house so it gets pretty cold overnight. I have been using a seedling heat mat underneath my carboy and it seems to work well enough, although I like the cooler and aquarium heater idea as well.

 

[Having-A-Homebrew]

Ummm, brew a lager?

 

[HoppyDaze]

always ferment at the mistress's house....brewing 101

 

[Mutilated1]

I suppose this happens to the best of brewers. You've worked hard crafting your brew. Thought out your recipe, purchased and prepared your ingredients, cleaned, cooked, pitched and finally the easiest part: stick it in the closet. You warn "do not turn off the heat before you leave for work.".

Then you come home and the house is 55 degrees instead of 65-70. Yeah that airlock is still as a statue.

So what I'm wondering is who here has some tricks they'd like to share on how to manage your temperature when you're limited to your home's central air for climate control? Preferably no alternatives involving divorce or 12 beers and a wife beater t-shirt! :rockin:

my old lady usually won't do what I tell her to either.

55 is perfect temp for making a lager, why not make something else ?

 

[Opherman47]

i would just put a post it note over the thermostat, that says, " i love you baby for letting the temperature stay where it needs to for the beer, this will only last a short time, and then ill take you out to dinner or something... you get the idea

 

[BugleBrew]

55 degrees is pretty damn cold. I'd say compromise and ask her to not let it get below 60. The added heat of the fermentation process should keep the wort in the sweet spot.

 

[sirsloop]

I brew when its cold outside and leave the fermenter by my sliding door. I let SWMBO keep the apartment temp wherever she wants (75ish) and I move the fermenter closer to the door to drop the temps. In the dead of winter its easy for it to drop in the 50s if its real close. In the fall I'll crack the door at night and leave the drapes around it. That'll get the temp down, and the thermal mass will keep it there through the day while the apartment heats up. Its not ideal, but I can keep the fermenter at like 66-70.

 

[ajwillys]

Just buy a small space heater and put it in the closet. You will have to play with the temperature dial to get it to come on in the right range but it shouldn't be too hard. Or, you could also get a temperature controller while your at it and control it with that. Every brewer needs at least one (or two or three).

 

[solstice]

+1 for lager. or better yet, kolsch. kolsch yeast stay happy into the mid 50's.

 

[Evan!]

CVS sells heating pads for like 10-15 bucks. I have 2 of them. My brewhouse is also my laundry room, which is in the unfinished portion of my basement, so it has no heat/AC. Right now, it's a chilly 52 degrees f in there . I was recently fermenting my Cidre Saison, which I wanted to get pretty high, and I was able to get it up into the mid to upper 70's just by turning the heating pad to "high". A brew belt does the same thing, but you can't get a brew belt at the local CVS. Just tie the heating pad around the side of the carboy/bucket with a length of string.

In the summer, it's trickier, but if I'm not doing a lager (which ferment at very controlled temps in my fridge), I use an insulated patio beverage cooler, filled with some water, with the carboys submersed in it, and a bunch of frozen water bottles and those freezable blue picnic things, and regulate the temps just by adding or subtracting the frozen bottles.

 

[T Red]

You warn "do not turn off the heat before you leave for work.".

Wouldn't it be more energy efficient to leave the heat on anyways? Most of the time lowering the thermostat more than 2 degrees costs more. Assuming you have some insulation.



I really didn't know temps in Baton Rogue would get cold enough to cool a house down to 55 during the day.

 

[FxdGrMind]

I have used a brew belt now on both my brews. It does say not to use on Glass Carboys though. I have Brew Buckets and it kept the base temp a 68-69 deg in a 61 deg room. When fermentation was hot and heavy the temp would rise to 71-72 in the bucket. No cover other than a brown paper bag with hole for the air valve so that no lite could get to the precious...beer.
Should be able to find them online.
Cheers

 

[HomieJeromie]

I have a small closet in the center of my house that has some clothes hanging in it that I put my carboy in. It seems to stay at a very consistent temp and of course stays undisturbed and out of my daily view so I don't fiddle with it.

 

[david_42]

Get a large cardboard box and put it over the fermenter.

 

[KEITH27]

they make them thermostat covers you can pput a lock on my boss used to have one i turned off the heat one day left and never turned it back on so he locked it up hahahaha

 

[Revvy]

Don't forget airlock bubbling or lack of means nothing...except that it is NOT venting excess CO2...NOT NECESSARILY that fermentation isn't happenning. It may indeed be fine...especially since the yeast do generate some heat during fermentation, so actually your fermentor may be in the low 60's which is perfect for brewing ales...

An electric blanket or even simply an insulated one, will help, as would an aquarium heater in a water bath, or a brew belt..but don't get too crazy...and don't go by airlock activity as a "fermentation gauge" because it really isn't.

And unless your fermenter temp is below the dormancy temp of your ale yeast and it dropped put of suspension..everything is more than likely fine..If they did go dormant (they wouldn't die until the temps hit the 30's and their walls burst) just warming up the fermenter and swirling a bit woll get them back in the game...


But don't go by airlock...go by hydrometer for gauging fermentation activity.

 

[mmb]

always ferment at the mistress's house....brewing 101

Just don't pitch your yeast there.

:fro:

 

[TJ-Bill]

I made myself one of these.. We heat with wood so the temp in the house goes up and down depending on the time of day.. this uses a IR heat lamp hooked up to a household thermostat. works great and it's wife proof.!

 

[bull8042]

Just don't pitch your yeast there.

:fro:

DOH! Words to live by!

 

[JPicasso]

Wouldn't it be more energy efficient to leave the heat on anyways? Most of the time lowering the thermostat more than 2 degrees costs more. Assuming you have some insulation.

I know this isn't a heating and cooling board, but I've got to speak up here.
Lowering your thermostat during the day, assuming 7-9 hours at work,
will not cost more than keeping the heat at 68 or so. Dropping the house heat
by 5 degrees or more will result in a savings to your heating bills.
Programable T-stats FTW!

[/non-beer discussion]

 

[T Red]

I know this isn't a heating and cooling board, but I've got to speak up here.
Lowering your thermostat during the day, assuming 7-9 hours at work,
will not cost more than keeping the heat at 68 or so. Dropping the house heat
by 5 degrees or more will result in a savings to your heating bills.
Programable T-stats FTW!

[/non-beer discussion]

That is true if you have a fossil fuel furnace I assumed perhaps wrongly that he had a heat pump. If you lower the temp just 2 degrees the electric heat strips have to come on to catch up. They are expensive to operate. It's less expensive to let the compressor do the work.

 

[underwaterdan]

always ferment at the mistress's house....brewing 101

lmao