Box Fan and Fermenter Cooling

[meadowstream]

Just wanted to share what I do to cool my sankey fermenters: use a box fan to flow basement air over the sides of the fermenters. This results in 3-7 degrees of cooling during active fermentation (basement temp fluctuates between 58 and 63 deg F over the year.)

When I first pitch, fermenter temperature is typically ~81 deg F. But the box fan will bring the fermenter down to 65 deg F pretty fast (further if allowed.) At this point, yeast will drive the temp to 72 without fanning. The fan will keep active fermentation at around 68 deg F (where I want it for the yeasts I use most frequently.)

 

[Catt22]

You can improve the cooling performance even more if you set it up as an evaporative cooler (swamp cooler). Basically, you would put the fermenter in a tub of water and drape a towel, sweashirt or something similar over the fermenter, letting it extend into the water. The cloth will wick up the water. The fan will accelerate the evaporation rate and this will cool the fermetner even more. How much will depend on a lot of factors such as the ambient relative humidity and temperature. You can also add frozen plastic water bottles to the tub if additional cooling is needed.