Using Dry Ice to Drop Temperature of Fermentation FAST

[Brewmegoodbeer]

Hello all,

I am having trouble getting my temperature down and I am currently fermenting at 77 degrees at at almost the 48 hour mark. I am think of buying some dry ice, which is -120 degrees farenheit to drop my wort to about 55 and then take it out. Anyone try this by chance?

 

[Contrarian]

Sounds like you are asking for contamination.
Frozen bottles of water in some sort of enclosed chamber is the low tech option, add or remove as needed.
Leave the fermentation bucket closed

 

[JonM]

You'd be better off putting the chunk of dry ice on top of the lid and maybe wrapping a blanket around the whole thing.

ETA: A 22°F drop 48 hours after pitching and when fermentation has started is a lot. It might shock the yeast into dormancy. The ester profile is likely set by now anyway.

 

[Brewmegoodbeer]

of course I would not put it into the fermenter its self! I have a fast ferment jacket that my conical fermenter sits inside. I would put it in the jacket and open the small side slits the jacket has so the carbon dioxide smoke can flow out. It will actually look pretty cool. Just wondering if anyone has tried this. Maybe its worth doing for the experiment and a good youtube video. haha

 

[cegan09]

If you want fast change you need something that will wick the heat away, not changes in the air temp around the fermenter. Conduction cooling is always better than convection.

Look up swamp coolers. Throw the bucked in a shallow bath, then throw a t-shirt over the bucket. Shirt pulls water up until it's fully wet, and then the evaporation cools the shirt and fermenter. The colder the water the bigger the effect. Just making the air around the bucket colder won't work as fast.


But I agree with the above, if you've been that high for this long, you're probably already into the irreversible region. Learn, and plan for next time.

 

[RM-MN]

By the time you are 48 hours into a warm fermentation the off flavors and fusel alcohol have already been produced and quick chilling is likely to just stop the yeast activity and drop them out leaving you with a bad tasting beer that doesn't get cleaned up. The time for temperature control is the first 3 to 4 days when the yeast have all the sugars to feast on and like to go crazy with off flavored compounds.

 

[Brewmegoodbeer]

I have gotten my wort below 70 at like 2.5 days. I am hoping a 2 weeks of primary and a week of secondary will clean it up, as I have heard that nottingham is a forgiving strain.

 

[RM-MN]

Skip the secondary unless you need the primary really badly. You need all the yeast to help with the cleanup and even then I'm not betting on a real good outcome. Drinkable but not great is my guess.

 

[z-bob]

I'm too lazy to look it up right now [and the pizza is about to come out] but I think ice has a higher specific heat and latent heat of fusion than dry ice does. (plain old ice will cool more than dry ice in spite of the impressive temperature difference)

 

[madscientist451]

of course I would not put it into the fermenter its self! I have a fast ferment jacket that my conical fermenter sits inside.

Where are you located? What is the outside temperature at night?
If its chilly at night outside, the easiest solution would be to take the insulated cover off and set the fermenter outside to take the temperature down. The only other thing I can think of is packing as much ice in there as the jacket will hold.

 

[Brewmegoodbeer]

I my wort is 68 degrees now and stable. I was going to "secondary" because I am adding vanilla bean to the conical and did not want yeast in there with the vanilla for that third week. Would yeast effect the flavoring of the vanilla for that week? Maybe I can just not dump the yeast at week 2 and instead, dump it at the end of week 3. What do you all suggest?

 

[goosegrenade]

Why are you trying to drop the temperature down?

 

[Brewmegoodbeer]

I am no longer wanting to drop it. I am happy with my temp below 70. It hit 84 in my garage at 24 hours into fermentation. That's the highest I have ever seen fermentation get. I moved my conical and jacket inside to my 73 degree closet and it is good now. The main step now is to wait and see if there has been too much damage to recover the taste I am looking for- a smokey flavor with a vanilla accent after I add my vanilla bean at weak 3. I am not getting any bad smells when I open my fermenter now. It smells like dark chocolate (even though I did not use chocolate malt).

 

[Brewmegoodbeer]

I live in Florida, where it stays 65 or lower only 2 months out of the year (December and January)

 

[goosegrenade]

Definitely look into getting a fridge or building a fermentation chamber that you can control the temperature in. It really is the most important part of brewing. And it isn't a big deal, you can build one and get a controller for less than $150

 

[Brewmegoodbeer]

Yeah, I may look into building one within the next year or so. I want to get my money out of this fast ferment jacket that I bought. It actually has been working well since I moved it into my closet vs the 84 degree garage. The heat in the garage was too much. Deff have to have it in a room where it is 70's so you can actually get a decent drop of a temp with frozen gallon ice jugs. I have 3 frozen gallon ice jugs in there and It has dropped the temp from room temp 73 to an inside jacket temp of 65. Not as easy to manage as just setting the temperature controller to a certain temp on a ferm. chamber though. I will have to step up to that eventually.

 

[goosegrenade]

A fast ferment will fit in a taller fridge, keep an eye on Craigslist, the temp controller is only about $40 on amazon