Brewing in a HOT apartment

[MasterShake]

do what I am going to do and brew a Saison

 

[StrangeDog]

I love coming onto this forum and seeing the exact question I was going to ask already answered with several great options. I think I'm off to check on the drip pan right after this...

 

[I-Hop]

I had the same problem earlier this year. I posted the question here and I got lots of awesome responses. What I came away with was a large cooler (looks like a giant sand pail with rope handles). I put my fermenter in the cooler and filled the cooler with water to just below the level of beer inside the fermenter. Each day, I swap out frozen water bottles in the water. I put stick on temperature strips on the cooler and it has been working great so far. Good luck with your brewing.

 

[pretzelb]

Stupid question - when you take the temp readings are you going on the water in the outside container? That would be easiest since you don't have to dip into the carboy, but wouldn't the beer be warmer than that? Or is it just close enough to get an idea of the temp?

I have a cooler that might work but I haven't tried this trick yet. I think it might help.

 

[kyleobie]

Stupid question - when you take the temp readings are you going on the water in the outside container? That would be easiest since you don't have to dip into the carboy, but wouldn't the beer be warmer than that? Or is it just close enough to get an idea of the temp?

I got the same idea from another poster here. The water temp and the internal temp have been the same for me. However, I've read from others you can't trust the water's reading while your batch is in the throws of fermentation. I'd be interested to hear what some others think about that.

 

[Hang Glider]

Water is a great thermal engine. Air chambers (fridge) must be 60-ish for the beer to maintain 67-68, but immersed in a tub of water, the temp of the beer is very close. If you put a $20 pond pump in the bottom to keep it all moving about, they'd probably be within half a degree.

 

[pretzelb]

Water is a great thermal engine. Air chambers (fridge) must be 60-ish for the beer to maintain 67-68, but immersed in a tub of water, the temp of the beer is very close. If you put a $20 pond pump in the bottom to keep it all moving about, they'd probably be within half a degree.

As long as it's close I'm happy with the temp readings outside. I need to try this for my next batch and see if I can finally get something decent.

 

[Erythro73]

Do as I'm doing right now...

Build a Son of a Fermentation Chiller (search these forums and google). Not too hard to do (I have a good friend to help me... he's a great handyman).

 

[McBrewski]

I just took the temperature of my grav-reading sample to see if the temp of the beer was similar to the water surrounding it. Turns out the water is a good 10 degrees lower in temp, however, the wort is probably just warmer cause I can't change out frozen water bottles while I'm sleeping and thus causes the beer to warm up a bit.