Advice on Temperature control?

[Juilin]

So, I have a Scotch Ale that I put in primary yesterday bubbling away. It's been sitting in a 67 degree room for the past 18 hours or so and has developed a nice, thick krausen. It turned out really well from what I've seen so far. The only problem is that I can't seem to lower the temperature of the beer. It's fermenting pretty vigorously and the temperature has gone up to 74 degrees. Any advice on how to bring it down? Can I move it to a lower temperature room without risking oxidizing the brew?

Sorry for asking so many questions on here, but I'm trying to learn as fast as I can!

 

[MeatyPortion]

If you can, get a plastic tub filled with cool water and ice cubes, and put the fermenter in it. That's one way of getting the temp down.

You can also move it to a lower temperature room without much risk of oxidization. Just be careful carrying that thing.

 

[jonmohno]

the yeast generate 5-10 roughly degrees when fermenting.One thing learned.

 

[rudu81]

Swamp cooler is cheap and easy. Get a large tub (or even your bathtub) full of water and place your fermenter in it. You can use ice to get the temp down

 

[Juilin]

Thanks for all the fast responses! Should I just take it out after it gets down to about 68 or so and then keep a closer eye? Or are there any other bits of advice on keeping the temperature stable without much equipment other than a big plastic tub...

 

[TTB-J]

Beauty of a big plastic tub or a big cooler or a bathtub (generally known as a swamp cooler) is that you can fill it up so the water level in the cooler is equal or above the level of beer in the carboy and it will insulate the brew from swings in temperature. It takes a while for that much water to change temperature, so often you can keep it at a pretty constant temp by throwing in the occasional frozen water bottle or two. That's what I do and I've had great success at keeping the carboy at just about whatever temp I want. We can't all have chest freezers with digital temperature regulators!

 

[weirdboy]

Instead of using ice cubes, use frozen water bottles (don't fill them up all the way, they will burst). That way you can add/remove easily as needed, in addition to being able to reuse the bottles over and over again.

I have been using this technique for fermentation temperature control for 3+ years and it works VERY well.

 

[jla_doc]

Although I've only done a few batches. What a lot of guys I brew with do is wrap a wet/damp towel around the carboy or fermenting bucket and put a fan on it. Works great! Good luck!

 

[Juilin]

So, I filled my big plastic tub with cold water, plopped the carboy in there, and it's under control now. Thank you so much!

Oh, one other thing, I know you want to keep your brew away from sunlight, but are normal light bulbs and such okay?