Tokyo Summer Brewing

[afsjoiwejio]

Hi everybody,

I have read some threads and not found an easy answer to this:

I just started a batch using Black Rock NZ Draught with some cascades thrown in 55 minutes into a 1 hour 4 liter boil. Sterilized things, things went well, got good fermentation - really good fermentation. However, this week in tokyo the low is about 24 celcius and the high is 30. I put the fermenter in my friend's bathtub, but he occasionally takes showers in there for 10 minutes or so, but otherwise the temp seems to be around 25-26 at all times. That is, just under 80F. There is nothing I can do about this without moving the fermenter all the way to my place and risking oxidation.

Anybody brew around these temperatures in a really humid season? Any advice, thoughts on how this will impact my fermentation time, and how I should bottle / condition?

I also have an easy question on bottle conditioning: I have some priming sugar and bottles of various sizes which I intend to reuse. I believe the rhetoric against using commercial glass beer bottles is propaganda to get me to buy expensive bottles. Can I just put the sugar at the bottom of the sterilized bottles, or should I somehow mix it into my 25 liter plastic fermenter?

Thanks to anyone who takes the time to answer my plea for help.

 

[RCCOLA]

Brotha, you need to get one of these, freeze some water bottles to put in it, and try to keep your ferm. temps under 22C for the best results. Your currently fermenting beer may come out estery or it may be fine. Just roll with this batch and try to shoot for better temp. control on future batches.

To bottle condition, any pry off top bottles that had carbonated liquid in them are usually fine. You want to mix a boiled and cooled priming solution in another bucket, rack your beer on top of it and bottle from it.

From there, bottle condition ~ 2 weeks at room temp.

 

[afsjoiwejio]

Thanks for that picture.

Do you have any idea how many frozen 2-liter bottles, or whatever size bottles, make sense in this temperature range (30c - 24c ambient temperature) for a 20 liter batch in the type of bucket you recommend?

 

[RCCOLA]

You'll have to figure that one out for yourself. That pic is a friend of mines. I ferment in a wine fridge. Just do a trial run out before you brew a batch, and then use the water for your brew.

 

[JOHN51277]

I am using 4-5 16 oz. water bottles twice a day, and it kept it around a 65-68 range in a 72 degree house.

 

[afsjoiwejio]

I ended up leaving it in my friend's bathtub / closet, and it turned out delicious, for some reason tasting like a white beer maybe. I added cascades toward the end of an hour boil of the Black Rock New Zealand Draught kit. No idea why it tastes like this, but happy with it even without CO2. We'll see how it is in a couple weeks.

Temperatures were from 25-31 for almost the entire fermentation (3 weeks+alpha).