Temperature and fermenting

Alright, I've got a question about temperature and fermenting.

I live in the midwest and one week the temperature is in the mid 60's, perfect for ale fermenting. Next week, the high 80's.

My primary was dealing with mid 60 temperatures, inside a closet. Then when I transfered it to the secondary and the beer's temp is in the 72 -74 range, inside the same closet. I don't have any way of keeping it cooler. What can I expect from this?

It was a Dunkelweiss that tasted pretty darn good only after the primary and the gravity was about 1.010 when I transfered to the secondary.

First, having a higher temp in the secondary isn't going to have as much of an effect as in the primary.

Second, can you wrap a wet towel around it? That will cool it off quite a bit. Can you put it in a tub or sink or big trash can with water half way up and the a towel that can wick the water up? That will cool it even more. A fan pointing on either of these will cool it even more.

Also, what kind of wheat did you use? A range of 74ish may be fine, in general I think that is good for the style.

Putting it in a cooler with water will help keep the temperature from wild fluctuations. That may help keep the temp. steady.

I go the cooler route. I made some lids out of polystyrene insulation; one 1liter bottle of frozen water keeps the temp down about 10 degrees for a few days.

See Craigslist and look for a chest freezer, I finally had to buy one (Indiana) and a temp controller. It is nice though, you can ferment and never have to look at it!

Thanks for all the great ideas. I'm going to have to try the lid idea some day. Did you ever have problems with condensation and the lids? The temp is at a steady 72 now that the air conditioning is on. We're selling our house, so I'll be moving soon and the basement in the new house is a constant 60 degrees in the summer without the air on. I shall call it "The Beer Basement". I'm just excited about the winter and the possibility of lager brewing without a freezer.

As for the possible freezer purchase, that one may have to go on hold as the wife gave me approval for the kegerator purchase. I'm thinking about the $499 Haier at Menards. I've seen all the conversions on the forums and I think their awesome but I also don't think the wife will let me jump on this purchase ever again. What she doesn't know is that I'll be converting the kegerator to a three tap.

wsoxfan24 said:

As for the possible freezer purchase, that one may have to go on hold as the wife gave me approval for the kegerator purchase. I'm thinking about the $499 Haier at Menards. I've seen all the conversions on the forums and I think their awesome but I also don't think the wife will let me jump on this purchase ever again. What she doesn't know is that I'll be converting the kegerator to a three tap.

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Don't bother. I have that one, and I've modified the crap out of it just to get it to work to my liking.

The original keg line was too short and made for foamy pours even at 5 psi serving pressure. I pulled my hair out trying to fix that, spent too much money on a Gucci gadget that claimed it would fix my problem (I didn't do enough reading on draught systems), and wound up replacing the line with the correct 6' length of 3/16" ID tubing.

The stock thermostat would only maintain 45 degrees at the coldest setting, so I put it on a digital temperature controller.

The tower isn't cooled, so my first pour was always warm and foamy. I added a blower and hose to recirculate cold air through the tower.

It has a very small cooling coil that gets REALLY cold. Even at 45 degrees, I was having frost problems bad enough to warrant defrosting every 3 weeks. I've sealed every crack I can find, and I still wind up having to defrost the thing more often than I feel I should in an area where the relative humidity is rarely greater than 50%. Hopefully some air circulation helps that problem.

Oh yeah...the whole thing just reeks of cheapness to me. For $500, I should get more than a stainless door on a cheap fridge. The top is flimsy particle board, the sides barely qualify as metal, and the components (thermostat, in particular) are garbage.

The bright side? I only paid $200 for it on clearance at Best Buy.

Spend your $500 on the chest freezer of your dreams and outfit it with multiple towers/taps as you please. I think you'll be much happier in the end.