Fermentation control, Igloo ice Cube - which one?

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beergears

beergears

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I need to rig up an Igloo Ice Cube cooler to control my fermentation temperature, a tad low, barely 60 degs now.

I am not familiar with the Ice Cubes. Which type would be best for the application (6-gal BB and/or 5-gal. carboy)?

BTW, anything better that the Ice Cube/aquarium heater combination?
 
There are better approaches, but that's a good inexpensive combination. I'd go with the 6 gal. BB.

And a 48-qt Ice Cube makes a good mash tun as well.
 
Here's mine:
4189-DSCF0002.JPG


I usually use it with an ale pale bucket, and just take off the lid for that. When I use a carboy, like for lagering for example, I take off the regular lid and stick on this homemade lid. I can maintain lagering temperatures (34 degrees) by adding a water bath and frozen water bottles, or I can maintain a fermentation temperature of 68 degrees in my cool house by using an aquarium heater in a water bath the winter.

I cut out four layers of foam board insulation to hold in the heat or cold, since the original lid is hollow. I kept the original lid, since it also doubles as a wheeled cooler.

The wheels are nice because with a water bath, it's very heavy!
 
Yooper,

I know this is an older thread but I'm thinking of building an Igloo Ice Cube cooler fermentation chiller like yours and I have a question.

With your system I'm curious what the temp profile would look like if you never added more ice. Ie: how warm would it get after 24hr? Depends on the ambient air temp of course but I'm wondering if the system was in an ac-controlled hom at say 70-75 deg, would the cooler temp be up to room temp after 24hr or would it be more like 65 deg still?

I've heard the Brew Strong guys talk about how only the first couple of days (yeast growth) of fermentation is really crucial temp-wise and a gradual rise in temp up to say 75 degf is fine over the latter stages of fermentation. I brew indoors in TX and the ambient temp in my house is pretty steady. With a decent insulated cooler I'm thinking for ales why bother with ice swapping. It adds the risk of shocking the yeast when dropping the temp.

Cheers,

Jonno.
 
jonnojohnson said:
Yooper,

I know this is an older thread but I'm thinking of building an Igloo Ice Cube cooler fermentation chiller like yours and I have a question.

With your system I'm curious what the temp profile would look like if you never added more ice. Ie: how warm would it get after 24hr? Depends on the ambient air temp of course but I'm wondering if the system was in an ac-controlled hom at say 70-75 deg, would the cooler temp be up to room temp after 24hr or would it be more like 65 deg still?

I've heard the Brew Strong guys talk about how only the first couple of days (yeast growth) of fermentation is really crucial temp-wise and a gradual rise in temp up to say 75 degf is fine over the latter stages of fermentation. I brew indoors in TX and the ambient temp in my house is pretty steady. With a decent insulated cooler I'm thinking for ales why bother with ice swapping. It adds the risk of shocking the yeast when dropping the temp.

Cheers,

Jonno.
Click to expand...

I don't know. I assume it would gradually rise to room temperature but I don't know how long it would take. I pitch at fermentation temperature, and add the water bath as soon as it's needed, so I don't know the answer to your question.
 
Ok well thanks for letting me know. I picked up the cooler today and will hopefully work on a lid this weekend. I'll probably do some tests with a water-filled carboy first since I don't think I'll have time to brew for a couple of weeks.
 
jonnojohnson said:
Ok well thanks for letting me know. I picked up the cooler today and will hopefully work on a lid this weekend. I'll probably do some tests with a water-filled carboy first since I don't think I'll have time to brew for a couple of weeks.
Click to expand...

I know it may not translate to this neck of the woods, but where did you buy yours? I am having trouble locating one, at the moment.
 
Academy Sports & Outdoors. I see from their store map the closest one to Tampa is Jacksonville :0-(
 
OldE said:
I know it may not translate to this neck of the woods, but where did you buy yours? I am having trouble locating one, at the moment.
Click to expand...
If there's one by you try Lowe's. I just got one from there last week. I checked on-line first, ordered it and went and picked it up.
 
So I created a cooler setup just like Yooper's, filled it and a 5 gallon glass carboy with water at about 64 deg. I dumped in 4 frozen bicycle water bottles and monitored the temp inside the carboy every few hours. Air temp was consistently 70-73 deg.
The carboy temp dropped from 64 to 57 deg in the first couple of hours. After that the carboy temp gradually rose at a rate of 1 deg every 8 hours and now after 48hrs the temp is up to 62 deg.

Some thoughts:
* Don't need all 4 water bottles. At least with my faucet water temp starting at 64.
* The cooler retains cold well enough to sustain a nice gradual 10-12 degree rise over about 4 days once initial fermentation growth has subsided. I'm happy with then leaving the wort in it's bath with no additional cooling for the rest of the fermentation.
* Obviously have a fermenting wort instead of water will raise the temp initially. I need to experiment with the timing of adding the ice at the start.
 
Living in north Texas it is simply to warm in the house for brewing. Besides the cool ideas of making a simple swamp cooler out of an igloo cooler, what about those small refrigerators I see at Walmart or Best Buy all the time? They are about $149 made by Heier. As long as the fermenting vessel fits, wouldn't that be a controlled way to monitor the temp for fermentation? Any cons that anyone can see?
 

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