swamp cooler

captjack · Apr 17, 2015

I am doing a swamp cooler for my fermentation. I am now 2 weeks out and been addind foroen water bottles to keep temp down water temp at 60 degrees.I still have bubbling in airlock and kreausen on top .Do I still hve to keep the water kool until fermentation is over? Will the kreausen leaves is that a sign firmintation is over? After firmintation I plan on letting the brew rest about one week to let the yeast settle than cold crash for 3 days. Does this sound like a good idea?When I let the brew rest do I have to leave it in the swamp cooler ? Thanks for all yalls help can't wait to try out my first brew.

kh54s10 · Apr 17, 2015

The krausen should have dropped by now. 60 degrees is a little on the cool side so fermentation could take longer than normal. Most ale yeasts do best in the mid sixties. I would let the temperature rise to about 70 degrees and see if the krausen falls. It should already be at final gravity. Take a reading, wait 24-48 hours and take another one. If they are the same you can bottle the beer. You may have to siphon from underneath the krausen.

This is assuming an average beer. If it is a big beer you might want to age the beer in a secondary for longer. Really big ones might be in secondary for many months.

captjack · Apr 18, 2015

from what I read I thought you had to keep the temp to 65 degrees while fermenting figured I would keep temp of water around 60 degrees and brew would be around 65 degrees.i am doing a kolsch extract and pitched wyeast2565.

captjack · Apr 18, 2015

when fermentation is over you can still have a layer on top?

RM-MN · Apr 19, 2015

captjack said:
from what I read I thought you had to keep the temp to 65 degrees while fermenting figured I would keep temp of water around 60 degrees and brew would be around 65 degrees.i am doing a kolsch extract and pitched wyeast2565.

The transfer of heat from the liquid in the fermenter to the liquid outside the fermenter is quite good so your beer temp will be pretty close to the temperature of the water bath. You probably heard that fermentation can raise the temperature of the beer by 5 to 10 degrees. That is true if.....the initial temperature of the beer is higher so the yeast get really active, if the OG of the beer is toward the higher end like it would be in an Imperial or barleywine, if the fermenter is just sitting out in the air where the air doesn't remove the heat as efficiently as a water bath does.

If you chill the wort to the low end of the yeast's preferred range before pitching the yeast don't go crazy so they don't raise the temperature as much. If you have the fermenter in a water bath the temperature inside the fermenter will be really close to the temperature outside the fermenter. With those conditions, the water bath can be kept a degree or 2 cooler than the desired fermentation temperature and your fermentation temperature will be fine.

The beer (as soon as you pitch yeast the wort turns into beer by definition) only needs temperature control during the active ferment, usually 3 to 5 days. After that the higher temperature will not create off flavors and will favor the cleanup of intermediate compounds.