Hi I'm new from Rotherham, England. All my equipment is currently on order being made. Hopefully il be in full swing by the beginning of June. One question for you guys, how do you store and control the temperature of you fermenter? Cheers Robbo
johnny, welcome. This is a great question, and an important question, however it's considered impolite to introduce yourself and ask questions in another person's introduction thread.
If you like, I can copy your question to a new thread, where I'm sure lots of people will respond. There are many ways to control fermentation temps.
1. Swamp Cooler. Take a large tub (plastic is fine) and place your fermentor in the tub. Fill with water almost to the height of the wort inside the fermentor. The water in the tub will buffer temperature changes in teh ambient air. You can place soda bottles filled with frozen water in there twice a day to regulate the temperature somewhat. This is what a lot of people do when they first start regulating fermentation temps. It's cheap and simple (while also somewhat inconvenient.)
2. Temp controlled fridge or feezer. Take a spare, cheap, used fridge or freezer and wire a Johnson, Ranco, or STC-1000 temp controller (TIP: STC-1000 is the cheapest and has dual stage abilities, so it's a great deal...) Plug the fridge/freezer into the cool output, and a heat source such as a light bulb or reptile heater into the heat side. The controller adjusts it's output to keep the temps in range.
There are variations and some other methods as well, but those are the two big ones. I recommend you browse the DIY areas for more information. You won't find be disappointed in the variety of useful threads on this subject!
-Homer