Trying a new way to keep down the heat

Trying to brew in South Texas, I have found it hard to keep a fermentation carboy in the proper temperature range. The only room I have to use is my walk-in closet and it is as cool as any other (80's outside in November, yuk!) I found a way that right now keeps it cooler, though not ideal yet--I have some more tweaking to do. I placed the carboy in a shallow tub. Into the tub, but not touching the carboy I place a block of blue ice (the cooler packs that you use to keep a cooler cool). Over the carboy I draped a shirt to keep in the cool and ran the blow-off tube through the neck. I change the block every twelve hours or so. So far it is keeping cooler than the last batch, but not where I want it. Any ideas? I brew ales and only like one style of lager so will likely never plan to lager anything.

 

Add a fan blowing on it.

 

Use a bigger a tub and fill it up to the same level as the beer in the carboy.

 

A muck bucket is cheap(you can find one at farm and ranch type store)and will hold a carboy or bucket and several 2 liter pop bottles(frozen)

 

All very good ideas. I want to figure out a way to do all this with enough control to ferment in the garage. My wife loves my homebrew results but seems to love her closet space even more ... go figure.

 

Tell her youll give her the closet back for a chest freezer

 

+1 If you can swing it a chest freezer with temp controller is just the best for this sort of thing. You really appreciate it when you get those crazy temperature spikes from crazy hot strains. It does all the work for you instead of having to.scramble and throw ice into the bucket.