How warm do YOU set your water bath?

[goplayoutside]

I am curious about how people are setting the temps on their water baths to control fermentations. I had an older thread about this (here) and I am still wanting more information and I thought the poll would be of use.

The main question here is: when using a water bath, does the temp of the bath need to be adjusted to compensate for the exothermic nature of the fermentation reaction? I.E. if you want to ferment at 64, do you set your bath at 64? at 62? at 58? You get the idea.

I'd also appreciate it if anyone who knows where to find older posts or other information on this questions, or who has done experiments, would post here if they have the time. I hope this will be a resource for other new brewers who are just getting into controlling their fermentations, and the more information can be found in one place, the better.

Thanks folks, and happy brewing!

 

[DeathBrewer]

i don't use a water bath, i use a fermentation cabinet with an ac unit. i keep the ambient at 58°F and it keeps fermentation in the low 60s.

however, water should work far better than air. i wouldn't set it more than 2°F of from what you want to ferment at.

someone with more experience may chime in, tho.

 

[goplayoutside]

Death gets a gold star for responding before I could even put the poll up.

 

[Yooper]

When I use a water bath in the summer, I add ice (in frozen water bottles) and float a floating thermometer. In the winter, I use a submersible aquarium heater and set it at the temperature desired. As Deathbrewer said, the water is a better insulator than air, so I try to make my water bath just about the temperature I want fermentation to take place. Fermentation is exothermic, but since there is such a large mass of volume with the 5 gallons of wort and 5 gallons or so of water, it takes a LONG time for any temperature changes to occur.

 

[goplayoutside]

yeah that's part of why I like the water bath -- it helps average out temperature swings that occur through the day.

 

[TerapinChef]

I have a giant cooler that will fit 2 6.5G carboys and 1 5G. I usually replace the water once primary is done, and start it out around 66-68, then just let the temperature drop slowly. After 6 days it's usually down to about 62, and holds there for quite some time. I like to secondary just a bit lower than primary to help in settling.

 

[goplayoutside]

Does anyone know of any actual data out there? As in has anyone run tests with a temperature datalogger to get a look at the temperature curve over the whole fermentation?

I would run the experiment myself but am constrained financially from buying dataloggers for hobby purposes due to my being, ummmm, a broke graduate student (yeah I think that's what you call it). And I am a geologist, not a labrat, so I have no experience with buying sensors and hooking them up to my computer... and no extra computer... you get the idea.

 

[DeathBrewer]

Death gets a gold star for responding before I could even put the poll up.

awesome!