Summer sucks for fermentation

[Buford]

I'm beginning to realize how much summer really blows for making beer here. I've been struggling with fermentation temperature control ever since the weather turned to 100+ degrees. It takes a ton of ice to get the wort down to pitching temp with a prechiller due to the tap water temp being too high, and afterwards I have no ice left to dump in the bathtub with my fermenter.

I made a porter Saturday night that was pitched around 67 degrees, and I check it this morning... the yeast have gone to town heating that bucket and have gotten it up to 74. Argh.

I'm not expecting the beer to be bad, considering that brewers in the industrial days of porter sometimes fermented up to 79, but it's frustrating. I don't have room for a chest freezer and my beer fridge is full of kegs. I figure I could get a large square cooler that could fit the bucket and just get a bag of ice to dump in with it for the first couple days of fermentation, and it could serve double duty as a keg cooler if I take one or two somewhere.

The weather needs to cool off, now

Or make another hefe, I guess.

 

[Evan!]

Ah, yeah, the same old, same old. I used to stress about this too. Now, if my lagerator is occupado, I just do it the easy way (like I'm doing right now with my Mephistopheles): put the carboy into my utility sink, put the plug in the sink drain, fill it about 1/2 full of cold water, then cycle in frozen jugs of water (the apple juice jugs left over from Apfelwein work quite well). Right now, the Meph is about 64-66f.

Any container will do, you don't need a big cooler. One of those big 17-gallon heavy-duty buckets with the rope handles (typically used for horse feed and frat-party kegs) work really well, and aren't very expensive.

 

[david_42]

Much the same problem here, except the temperature can run from 45F to 100F in one day. A batch might be doing just fine and then it gets toasted. That's the main reason I haven't brewed anything since April. With my start-up getting close to launch, I tend to forget to change the ice in the cooler & I hate losing batches.

I'm working on a new kegger instead. Once that's done, the old kegger becomes a fermentation cabinet. Haven't had one since moving to Oregon & really miss it.

 

[BadKarma]

I may have found a solution of sorts.

One of my other passions is cigars. I have a converted wine cooler I use as a humidor (lotsa stogies) and I was using a 90+quart cooler for storage. Well I rearranged my humi and got all my overflow back into the wine cooler. Now I have a huge marine cooler empty and I wondered if my primary would fit in there with a couple ice jugs. Yep, fit in there very nice (standing on end). Gonna test this weekend with 5 gals of water and see if I can control the temp. Will let everyone know how it goes.

 

[mward]

Get a window mounted air conditioner at the pawn shop for 50$, mount it in a window, build a box from cardboard, leftover drywall, some of that pink 1" foam, whatever you can find that fits over the window unit and will allow you to put a carboy in it and fire it up. I have a 10k btu in the garage that I did this with and it keeps my fermenters at 67 no problem and because they don't run much to keep the box cool, it doesn't appreciably raise my electric bill.

 

[c.n.budz]

For the past few weeks I've been keeping my carboys in the living room and running my window AC alot. It's not perfect but it's better than the 85* in my kitchen(top floor apartment that gets lots of sun)

 

[gonzoflick]

Lets just say that down here in sunny central florida it is FREAKING HOT most of the year... my AC has been on constantly I think this month trying to get down to the 70 I have it set at....can't wait to see my electric bill. Most of my beers sit in carboys in my living room and are always between 73-76. Its the best I can do without messing with tubs, water, and ice. Right now Im fermenting 20 gallons so you can see worrying about temp will just cause me gray hairs.

 

[Jekster]

Fighting this battle myself. Luckily, I can usually keep a Carboy at around 68-70 with just a couple trays of ice a day. I really need to start saving water bottles and just re-freeze them.

On a side note: Do I need to worry about fermentation temps during secondary? If so, I'm going to be using a lot of ice on my Porter that I want to age till December...

 

[cubbies]

One of the beauties of living in St Louis I suppose. Supposedly one of the main reasons there was such on influx of German Brewers in St Louis in the 1800's was because of the ability to maintain a steady underground temperature.

In the backroom of my basement (which is completely underground), the temperature has only gone up about a degree (from 67 to 68), even though it has been over 100 degrees for a couple of weeks now. Guess I should consider myself lucky.

 

[Beerthoven]

One of the beauties of living in St Louis I suppose. Supposedly one of the main reasons there was such on influx of German Brewers in St Louis in the 1800's was because of the ability to maintain a steady underground temperature.

In the backroom of my basement (which is completely underground), the temperature has only gone up about a degree (from 67 to 68), even though it has been over 100 degrees for a couple of weeks now. Guess I should consider myself lucky.

Yes, you should. There are very few real basements in the South (though I'm sure somebody will chime in to contradict me). Every place I lived in Michigan and Montana always had a nice big basement. Down here, all we have are nasty crawl spaces.

 

[Evan!]

Yes, you should. There are very few real basements in the South (though I'm sure somebody will chime in to contradict me). Every place I lived in Michigan and Montana always had a nice big basement. Down here, all we have are nasty crawl spaces.

I think we all learned our lesson about basements...

No, there's not too many basements in Florida, because the whole state is a big swamp. We're in the "south", and we have a nice basement, 2/3 of which is finished, the other 1/3 dedicated to brewing and woodworking.

 

[Beerthoven]

...There are very few real basements in the South (though I'm sure somebody will chime in to contradict me)...

We're in the "south", and we have a nice basement, 2/3 of which is finished, the other 1/3 dedicated to brewing and woodworking.

Thanks, Evan! I was hoping it'd be you

 

[Hemi]

I guess I can consider myself lucky. I have 25 gallons fermenting in my basement and use a heating pads to raise the temperature to 65 degrees. Its almost 100dF outside. God I love basements.

 

[Evan!]

Thanks, Evan! I was hoping it'd be you

Did you expect any less?

Whether or not you have a basement depends largely on the type of soil and drainage you have. Most people, when building a house, want a basement if at all possible...but if you live in the bottom of a big hollow, like my mom, digging down is never a good idea. You'd hit the water table in no time, and if you did get a basement in there, your sump pump would be running 24/7.

 

[david_42]

In cold country, you have a basement because the foundation has to go below the freeze line. When we added a new living room onto our house in Illinois, the code required a five foot dig. Going the extra and hauling the dirt off added less than 5% to the cost of the project and gave us a huge recreation room.

I really wish I could add one here.

 

[gonzoflick]

Basements? What are basements?

 

[Fingers]

Temps have never been a problem for me because of central air and a cool basement. Well, the air broke and the temps went stupid high. Forgot about the brew and now I have 20 gallons, yes 20, to dump.

I wonder what would happen if I heated it up and ran it through a length of cool stainless tubing?

 

[SPLASTiK]

Average Summer Temp here is 65º

 

[c.n.budz]

Average Summer Temp here is 65º

yeah, how about your average winter temp? Not so smiley now are ya?

 

[SPLASTiK]

Bah, It's not so bad where I'm at in the winter, in the 30's on average. Not like up in Fairbanks where it gets 50 below zero But hey, winter makes the garage great for lagering

 

[Ryanh1801]

Tell me about it, I need to brew but not sure how in the hell im going to cool my wort. My air today has not shut off once and the house is still 78 degrees. No telling how hot the ground water is.

 

[Buford]

Well, I found somewhat of a solution. I moved the bucket to a different bathroom and put a jug of ice on top of it. Over the past day it has dropped to 67. I just hope the stint above 70 didn't ester/fusel it up too badly.

 

[EdWort]

I'm beginning to realize how much summer really blows for making beer here. I've been struggling with fermentation temperature control ever since the weather turned to 100+ degrees. The weather needs to cool off, now

I hear ya brother. It's too hot to brew and I can only fit 10 gallons in my fermentation freezer in the garage (got an Oktoberfest and a Rain Water Kölch in there now crash cooling).

The heat is all the more reason to brew like crazy in the spring and stock up for the hot summer. So far, I'm still good to go.

When I get home later this week, I'll be pulling out a Hefe & Haus Pale to put in the kegerator.

 

[JnJ]

Get a window mounted air conditioner at the pawn shop for 50$, mount it in a window, build a box from cardboard, leftover drywall, some of that pink 1" foam, whatever you can find that fits over the window unit and will allow you to put a carboy in it and fire it up. I have a 10k btu in the garage that I did this with and it keeps my fermenters at 67 no problem and because they don't run much to keep the box cool, it doesn't appreciably raise my electric bill.

I'd like to see some pictures of this.

 

[Bobby_M]

It's kinda self explanatory no? Put the AC in the window as if you're trying to cool the entire room, but put a smaller box in front of the AC so that you create a smaller conditioned area. You just need to cut a hole in the box for the front of the AC to stick into. You could do this with a tiny AC like a 5kbtu. The reason you'd still put the AC in a window is so you can blow the hot air outside and not into the room.

 

[JnJ]

Actually I wanted to see his design, there is a little more to it than "just build a box". Just like the walk-in frig, telling us about it is one thing, but pictures help other's ideas.

 

[Bobby_M]

You're right. Where are the pics man?

Nice town you got here JnJ. I'm down at the Hilton on riverwalk all this week. Blue Star was pretty good.

 

[JnJ]

You know what is sad? I've been here 7 years and have not been to Blue Star yet. I hear great things about it and am meaning to go, but it seems like something always comes up. So, what brings you to SA? Enjoying the heat?

 

[arturo7]

The wet towel with a fan method has worked well for me. However, I'll be out of town for a week so I am trying another stategy. I've got a Belgian Saison (Wyeast) on the way from AHS. The temp range for this yeast is 70-85 F.

I'll brew it up this weekend. Should have no problem holding that temp range in my garage.

 

[todd_k]

man I gave up brewing around here for the summer. Since I can't get a decent price on copper, I'm just waiting until the fall to brew again. Although I may make a batch of Apfelwein again.....