vibrator in my fermenter

[jesse]

Now that i got your attention...I have 2 carboys from a 12 gallon batch made just yesterday fermenting side by side in a plastic tub just big enough for both of them...I have them wrapped in towels..The problem was the towels kept drying out before i got home from work .I hooked up an old fish tank pump in the bottom of the tub and wrapped a hose with holes around the towels to keep them wet..works great. I have the temp sitting pretty and stable at 69.6 degrees with a fan on low. My house is at 84 during the day.. The only problem is the pump vibrates a little and you can feel it in the carboys.. Does any body know if this will cause a problem with fermentation????Maybe it might make the yeast settle before they're done..But then again, refrigerators vibrate as well. I know that when aging wine, vibration isn't good...but that's after primary fermentation and racking off the secondary. Any opinions or facts would be great....

 

[malkore]

it shouldn't cause any problem. i wouldn't even expect yeast floccuation to be affected.

 

[Yooper]

As exciting as the vibrator bit is, a thought is to fill your basin enough to wet the base of the towels. Then it'll wick up the rest of the way, keeping the fermenters cool, depending on your relative humidity.

But the fish tank pump won't affect your fermentation. I would only wonder about the affect on the glass. I mean, sometimes with carboys you get these hairline cracks or something you can't even see and then one day a little bump makes them shatter. If you carboys are new, though, I think you're fine.

 

[jesse]

As exciting as the vibrator bit is, a thought is to fill your basin enough to wet the base of the towels. Then it'll wick up the rest of the way, keeping the fermenters cool, depending on your relative humidity.

But the fish tank pump won't affect your fermentation. I would only wonder about the affect on the glass. I mean, sometimes with carboys you get these hairline cracks or something you can't even see and then one day a little bump makes them shatter. If you carboys are new, though, I think you're fine.

I have the towels dipped into the water but it still gets dry from the middle to the top. If one of the carboys breaks.I'll probably lose it and kill his brother

 

[Kevin Dean]

If one of the carboys breaks.I'll probably lose it and kill his brother

Better Bottles are where it's at.

In case this isn't blatently obvious, please let us know how the brews turn out.

I'd personally imagine it wouldn't affect your brew much, if anything at all. The surface area of the "splashed' beer is so low that any gasses, be them o2 or co2, wouldn't absorb into the beer. I think the prohibition with moving beer in fermentaiton is to prevent oxidization.

 

[Philip1993]

Ok, after the iron in the wort thread I really expected this thread to be more interesting

 

[malkore]

as long as its wet halfway up, that should work. the beer inside is actually stirring itself with fermentation activity and that will cool it from the bottom up.
if you want, point a small fan at the t-shirt and that will cool it a few degrees more.
i've popped mine down to 60F by having the a/c vent blowing at a t-shirt that was only covering the back half of my bucket, and only wet about halfway up.