Questions About Maintaining Fermemtation Temps with Cooler and Ice

[ultravista]

Many posts here reference coolers and tubs to keep their fermemtation temperatures down.

Assuming a 5 gallon batch ...

When usinging a cooler or tub, how much water and ice (packs, bottles, etc) do you typically use to bring the ambient temp down to the low 60's?

I am having a hard time wrapping my head around how to determine how much "coolant" to use.

Will an ice pack or frozen water bottle keep that much mass at 60 degrees?

The bottom line is that I will be fermenting with PACMAN and need it at 60 to 62 degrees - what is the best and easiest way to get there?

 

[MalFet]

There's no great answer, unfortunately, because any answer is going to depend on ambient temperature, volume of water, heat produced by yeast, and thermal conductivity of the container.

FWIW, during the very brief time that I was futzing with ice bottles, I would stick my fermentor in the bath tub with three to five frozen 1L water bottles. I had to watch closely to keep the temperature in the right vicinity.

Sadly, there's nothing best and easiest about ice bottles if you want precise temp control.

 

[Yooper]

My system is an igloo cooler with a new lid I made. There are pictures in my gallery. The airlock just pokes through the foam lid. I made it with four layers of foam insulation, so it's pretty good at holding temperatures. I fill it up to almost beer level (the more water, the better insulated it is- water is a great insulator and it takes a LONG time for that much liquid to change temperature) and then I float a thermometer in the water. I add frozen water bottles as needed to keep the temperature where I want it. In the summer, it might be one or two water bottles every day (I change them out when melted).

For your hot dry climate, that may or may not be adequate. Some people in dry climates find that a swamp cooler works better than a water bath. I have enough humidity (and cool temperatures) that evaporative cooling won't work for me. You may want to consider a swamp cooler, though.

 

[ultravista]

MalFet, what are you doing now that you've abandoned the ice water bath?

 

[MalFet]

MalFet, what are you doing now that you've abandoned the ice water bath?

The kind of system Yooper describes will make your life a lot easier as far as holding temperature goes. I did something like that for a while, but still had trouble dialing in a specific temperature. Perhaps if I had stuck with it a bit more I would have developed a better sense, but I found myself oscillating significantly over the temp I wanted. Plenty of people use this kind of set up, so just because I couldn't get it to work doesn't mean it can't work beautifully.

I just bought a thermoelectric mini-fridge and built a two-stage controller for it. It's nice because I don't even have to think about it now. I can have 50 degree temperature swings and I won't ever be off by more than a half degree from my target. Plus, I can put the beer in the fridge and walk away from it for three weeks. I'm not sure that's not overkill, but it's easy.

 

[sjbeerman]

I currently use the ice bath method and let me tell you it is a royal pain in the #@%! In the winter, I can reliably keep the temp from 68-72 but that's mainly because our place is around 71. If I want it colder than 68 then its a bit of challenge because I am not there 12hrs out of the day. The ice water bottles tend to melt within 30 min or so. The summer is even a greater challenge because our place is around 78. While this approach sort of works, it is a fairly imprecise method of controlling ferm temps. The system requires a lot of baby sitting and I have limited time to be able watch it. I am currently looking for a chest freezer so I can finally solve this issue with my system.