Brewing in Texas

[BillyRaygun]

I'm concerned about the summer temperatures in Texas. I plan to brew 5 gallons at one time outside and follow up with a primary and secondary fermentation in glass carboys. Am I wasting my time trying to brew is 100 degree whether?

While fermenting, the carboys will be in a cabinet, away from sunlight. However, in Texas, room temperature, even with the air conditioning on, is sometimes hard to maintain at 72 degrees. I'll double check my thermostat, but I believe it's set to 74 degrees.

With that said, brewing a Coopers extract, should I ferment in a cooler environment, such as an old refrigerator? Is boiling my wort in the sun a bad idea when it's 100 degrees outside?

Regards,
Billy Raygun

 

[Schnitzengiggle]

First things first, you will need to invest in two items:

1. You will need a fermentation chamber, or similar cooling device to keep your fermentation temperatures at acceptible levels. Either a converted fridge, freezer, a built fermentation chamber of some sort with a cooling apparatus suchas ice bottles or a minifridge, or a swamp cooler (least efficient, and hardest to control temps) with ice bottles. Or some other ingenious contraption that can cool your fermenters. They will be 8-10°f above ambient temps during active fermentation.

2. A way to chill your wort, I'll assume you have a wort chiller such as an IC coil chiller, if not, you will definitley need one! And I would suggest investing in an inexpensive pump from harbor freight so you can recirculate ice water to drop your t emps quicker and more efficiently.

With these two items you will be able to cool your wort to pitching temps within a reasonable period of time, and keep your fermentations at the proper temperature which will help to reduce the chance of off flavors due tohigh fermentation temps.

 

[duffman2]

Or you could join the no-chill craze and stop fighting the losing battle with wort chilling.

As far as fermentation, you're going to want a mini-fridge eventually

 

[Schnitzengiggle]

Or you could join the no-chill craze and stop fighting the losing battle with wort chilling.

Sacrilege!

 

[thezepster]

buy yourself a big tupperware thing that you can fit the carboy in. fill it 1/4 to halfway full of water, and that will cool it down a couple of degrees. To cool it even more you can put some ice in the water

 

[njschmidt]

buy yourself a big tupperware thing that you can fit the carboy in. fill it 1/4 to halfway full of water, and that will cool it down a couple of degrees. To cool it even more you can put some ice in the water

Do the above, and then put a T-shirt on the fermenter and a box fan aimed at it. The T-shirt will act like a wick, and will cool as the water evaporates from it. I brew in South Texas, and the stick-on thermometer on my fermenter regularly reads ~64*F when the ambient temperature in the house is 72*F.

 

[Homebrewtastic]

I too live in Texas. I can maintain a steady 68 or bellow with a swamp cooler, ice bottles and t-shirt with the fan. Two ice bottles keeps me at 68. Each extra one I add to that tends to drop the temperature about 1.5 - 2 degrees. I keep my house (ambient temperature) at 74.

 

[knotquiteawake]

Attached is my "Texas Proof" setup. Keeps the beer about 60-65 if I'm very proactive about swapping out the bottles and at least under 70 if I forget or do it less often.
Inside are a 2L bottle each, and then another 2 2L bottles in the freezer

 

[primer]

Where about in Texas are y'all? I'm in Wylie, north east of Dallas

 

[ReverseApacheMaster]

I live "down the street" in Keller. I try to limit my summer brewing because it takes a lot of work to keep the fermenter cool without having a fermentation chamber like a fridge with temp control. I usually brew saisons and Belgian beers that do well fermenting in the low to mid 70s.

When I do brew other stuff I go with the swamp cooler route. For smaller fementers (my 1 gallon jugs) I put them in a rubbermaid tub with water and cool with ice packs and frozen water bottles. With bigger fermenters I do the same thing but stick it under a fan. It stays around 65-70F.

The good news is that unless you are brewing some massive beer you really only need to control temperatures during the first 3-5 days. After that the yeast should not be dumping out esters that will give you off flavors.

 

[knotquiteawake]

I'm at Frankford and the Tollway in North Dallas, basically where George Bush Tollway and Dallas North Tollway meet.

 

[primer]

I'm at Frankford and the Tollway in North Dallas, basically where George Bush Tollway and Dallas North Tollway meet.

I take it you buy from hbhq? Are u part of the north Texas home brewers? I havnt joined yet, mainly because I know I wouldn't go to many of the pub meets. Could be interesting I guess tho

 

[callmebruce]

I'm in Georgia. I'm experimenting to see what works best for me.
I did the big open plastic bucket thing. Put my fermentation bucket in it. Filled the open bucket with cold water, ice and ice bottles and it cooled down pretty good. Swapped out ice bottles each morning. I was able to get temps down into the low 60's (garage temps were in upper 60's to low 70's).

I then picked up a large plastic camping cooler. I stood it on end, and my fermentation bucket fits inside just fine. (my better bottle fits as well! just not both at the same time). That seems to be keeping around 50 with a couple small 12 ounce bottles and a 2 liter bottle filled with ice. Not sure how it will hold up when it gets warmer.

Supposed to be in the 80's for the next several days - so I'll watch the temps my garage gets to, and check the cooler each day to see what that reaches.
(but I'm thinking instead of paying 55 bucks for a cooler, I should of paid a little more and got a small freezer or fridge)

 

[knotquiteawake]

I take it you buy from hbhq? Are u part of the north Texas home brewers? I havnt joined yet, mainly because I know I wouldn't go to many of the pub meets. Could be interesting I guess tho

My experiences at HBHQ have been like 50/50 good/bad so I just order stuff online unless its something not worth shipping like little fittings or hoses ect.

I haven't joined the NTHB club either because I'm just not that outgoing so I don't think I would do much with it. Maybe if one of buddies joined but otherwise I'm happy brewing alone.

 

[Pezman1]

I'm in Coppell - close by.

Here is my set up:

I have 2 igloo Ice-Cube brand square coolers. I forget the quart size, but they are the ones WITHOUT the wheels and they have flat interior bottoms. Pop of the lids, and your carboy will fit just fine.

I then pour 3 gallons of water in with the carboy, and rotate frozen 16 0z water bottles in the water bath about once a day.

Lastly, I have a vinyl cloth-backed tablecloth from Walmart. I cut holes in it for the carboy necks, and draped it over the carboy, trimming it to size over the top ov the cooler to keep out the light and keep the cold in.

Note - make sure your temp strip on your carboy is ABOVE the water line.


My fermenters are in my office which hits 75 degrees mid day. With this system I can very easily keep my beer 66-68 degrees, perfect for most ales.
You can keep it colder, but you would need more/bigger frozen water bottles rotated in more often.
Pez.

 

[BillyRaygun]

Wow. Thanks for all the responses, great ideas everyone. I'm located in Flower Mound and bought all my supplies from HBHQ in Richardson. I only made one batch of beer last October but would very much like to brew all year long.

I have a wort chiller that I bought. Next time, I will make my own. Anyway, my concern was really two issues.

1. Chilling the wort on a hot summer day and...
2. Keeping the temperature under control during the primary and secondary fermentation phases

All the ideas here are very good. I will have to experiment. The good news is that it seems a relatively low tech solution will work just fine to maintain a proper temperature while fermenting.

Thanks everyone!

 

[Homebrewtastic]

I have a pretty solid approach for crash chilling wort, even if it's 100+ outside.

You'll need two wort chillers and one large tub filled with salted ice water (bath).

Your first wort chiller is hooked up to the water line, that one goes into well salted ice water, as salt will raise the freezing temperature and ultimately lower the temp of the water. That one is hooked up to your second wort chiller that goes into the wort.

Run these for two minutes to drop it down to under 150. Then put it in the ice bath and keep running. It should be cool in under 10 minutes. Just make sure you're stirring constantly.