Swamp Cooler Help Needed

[dfouty]

Hello everybody,

I live in Houston Texas and it is getting pretty toasty. I'm just about to dive into brewing my first batch of beer and need to keep it cool while fermenting. My yeast says to stay around 63-68℉.

I'm planning on using a swamp cooler and am wondering if anyone has any advice for me. Like what temperature I should keep the water and stuff? I'm planning on keeping it in my house so humidity won't be a huge problem. And the inside air temp is about 74℉

Thanks to anyone who can help a newbie to make their first brew!

D. Fouty

 

[Dovage]

I would shoot for the low range of your yeast 63-64 because during active fermentation your wort will be as much as 8-10 degrees warmer. Then it will take on the se temp as the water in your swap cooler.


Sent from my iPhone using Home Brew

 

[flars]

I have been able to hold the wort temperature 8°F less than the ambient temperature during active fermentation with this set up.

Ice in the water bath could hold the wort temperature even lower.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/photo/albums/swamp-cooler-7991.html

 

[MaxStout]

Freeze water in a bunch of plastic pop or water bottles. Toss a few of them in, when they melt, replace with fresh ice bottles, refreeze the first ones, rotate, etc. Beats adding ice directly to the water and having the level build up over time.

 

[Yooper]

I live in a much cooler climate, but this set up works great for reducing the temperature by a lot:

I changed out the (hollow) lid of the cooler for four layers of foam insulation which I cut with a dremel.

With a water bath, and changing out frozen water bottles, I can keep the fermentation temperature at whatever I want, and it takes 10 gallons of liquid a very long time to change temperature so it stays pretty stable even as it starts to get a bit warmer.

I fill the water level up to the beer level, and just change out the water bottles as needed. I float a floating thermometer in the water bath, so I can check the temperature easily.

In the winter, when it's cold in my house, I can use a small aquarium heater in the water bath to bring the temperature up to the 60s.

This works great for me!

 

[WileECoyote]

Hello everybody,

I live in Houston Texas and it is getting pretty toasty. I'm just about to dive into brewing my first batch of beer and need to keep it cool while fermenting. My yeast says to stay around 63-68℉.

I'm planning on using a swamp cooler and am wondering if anyone has any advice for me. Like what temperature I should keep the water and stuff? I'm planning on keeping it in my house so humidity won't be a huge problem. And the inside air temp is about 74℉

Thanks to anyone who can help a newbie to make their first brew!

D. Fouty

Hello, if you use a swamp cooler during active fermentation I have found that the water around the fermenter is right around 5 deg cooler than whats in the fermenter if that helps you out.

Like was already said, keep your fermenting temps to the low side of the yeast recommendation temp.

32oz frozen Gatorade bottles work real good, you will need 4 maybe 5 of them during active fermentation, 1 about every 6 hrs or so, after 5 to 7 days you can let it warm up to 70 deg to help condition your beer, for 7 to 14 more days, then transfer to secondary, bottles or keg ! whatever one you are doing !

Cheers and good luck

 

[rodwha]

I've noticed the same thing as WileE.

I used to monitor the water temp with a floating thermometer thinking that the thermal mass of the water would keep the beer temp in check. After I bought fermometers I found the beer temp was about 5* warmer than the cool water, which meant I had actually been fermenting in the high 60's to low 70's.

I strongly recommend fermometers so you know the actual temp, but you can likely get by with monitoring the water temp until then by adding the 5*.

 

[rlmiller10]

I've noticed the same thing as WileE.

I used to monitor the water temp with a floating thermometer thinking that the thermal mass of the water would keep the beer temp in check. After I bought fermometers I found the beer temp was about 5* warmer than the cool water, which meant I had actually been fermenting in the high 60's to low 70's.

I strongly recommend fermometers so you know the actual temp, but you can likely get by with monitoring the water temp until then by adding the 5*.

The temperature delta discussed above will depend in if you are using plastic buckets or glass carboys to ferment. The thermal conductivity of a glass carboy is relatively higher so the temp of the water vs the beer in a carboy will be much closer than if the beer is in a bucket. Using a glass carboy, I was getting only one to two degrees difference between the stick on thermometer on the carboy and the floating thermometer in the bath water. And that difference was at the height of fermentation, it went to zero as fermentation slowed.

 

[MaxStout]

The temp delta will also depend on the proportion of thermal mass of the water to that of the beer in the fermenter. A large swamp cooler with several gallons of water will have more moderating effect on the fermenter temp than one with a small amount of water.

Before I switched to a ferm chamber, I had used a swamper made from a 30-gallon plastic drum cut in half. With the carboy sitting in the cooler, I could easily get 7 or 8 gallons of water to surround the carboy without the carboy becoming buoyant. With a water temp maintained around 60F, the inside of the fermenter would stay in low-mid 60s during the most active phase of fermentation. With that much thermal load, the temp swings wouldn't be very great.