Keeping temps down ?

[Drumm72]

I just brewed a batch a German wheat this morning .. Its fairly warm in the house , so i have placed two 2 liter bottles of frozen water right next to the primary and covered the whole thing with a wet towel , as well as placed a fan on it . The airlock is bubbling like crazy .I dont have a thermometer to put on the bucket either "Should" this process help to keep the temps down ? I guess , i am just worried about how fast the airlock is bubbling ..
I dont have a basement or i would move it there .. any other advice would be appreciated .

 

[ChshreCat]

Get some kind of container that your fermenter will fit into. Now is a good time to get one of those big "party tubs" people get to fill with ice and put bottles of beer or a keg into. They only cost a couple bucks.

Tub goes on floor, fermenter goes in tub, water fills tub, frozen bottles of water go in water in tub. Temps stay nice and cool:

This one isn't mine. I swiped the pic from RCCola's gallery, but this is the same tub I use. Does great.

I used this method last summer during a hot spell we had. No AC in the house. It was over 100 outside. Just under 100 inside. About 90 degrees in the bathroom where I had my fermenter. But my beer was a nice 65 according to a digital thermometer dipped into it.

 

[TheWeeb]

+1, local WalMart had tubs on sale for $5, with the outside temps in the 100's here and inside, even with AC at 80, this keeps the tub water 60-65 degrees. I have an analog thermometer taped to the inside of the tub and add frozen plastic water bottles as needed to keep the temp in optimal range. A small investment for not risking ruining your brew, as I did on my first. The temps were so high that fermentation was done in 36 hours and some really nasty flavors resulted (I call the batch AssBock because of this). A simple picture:

 

[Drumm72]

OK ..I put the primary in a big plastic tote with water and iced two liter bottles ..

 

[ChshreCat]

Once you get the temp down, prolly just need one 2-liter at a time unless it's super hot there. Keep two in the freezer and you can swap the bottle out 2 or 3 times a day.

 

[wulfsburg]

Once you get the temp down, prolly just need one 2-liter at a time unless it's super hot there. Keep two in the freezer and you can swap the bottle out 2 or 3 times a day.

I did the tote, towel and ice trick. I live in AZ and it gets extremely hot during the day when we arent home. I had some old styrofoam laying around I insulated the walls of the tote with plastic and duct tape. 1 towel underneath the cover, 1 towel over the cover. It looks really ghetto, but I only have to put 2 small 12 oz frozen water bottles, and a little bit of frezzer ice in there once every other day. My brew is during peak fermentation and is at a steady 64 degrees. I don't use a fan, because it is pretty much a makeshift styrofoam cooler.

Before I modified the tote, ice , fan and towel... and it was a major pain in the ass to tend to it 3 times a day.... I have other things to attend to. Especially when I had a secondary sitting for 2 weeks ontop of the 1 week of primary fermentaiton.I check it when I wake up and when I go to bed. What a lot of ice... I never had ice in my freezer for drinks.
Invest in a fermometer. It sticks on the side of your bucket and they are only 2-3 bucks online or at your local brew house. That way you know roughly what temp your beer inside the bucket is.

 

[Revvy]

Basically it is a rubbermade bin, water, some frozen water bottles (you ca also chuck rock salt in) and t-shirts over the fermenters to act as wicks, drawing the cold water up and around the fermeters.

I have gotten the water in the swamp cooler down to the high 50's and the fermenter a few degrees higher.

A fan blowing on it can be used as well.

 

[Drumm72]

Here is what I have done .

I hope it works .

 

[ChshreCat]

Looks just right.

 

[Drumm72]

OK , tomorrow is going to be one week in the primary ..
My question is , how long should I keep putting the ice bottles in the swamp cooler ?
The , instructions said 3 to 5 days primary fermentation , but it appears to still be fermenting rather well ( bubbling about once a minute) .. I know the airlock is not a indication of fermentation (I have been paying attention) But , should I keep the ice "a going" until I rack to bottle ? or just till the fermentation slows ?

 

[ChshreCat]

I keep it up until it goes into secondary or bottling if I don't secondary, but once the krausen falls I don't work quite as hard at it. Just a bottle or two, switched out twice a day.