Ways to cool your fermentation vessel

[MattT15]

Hi Brewers,

 

Short of surrounding your fermenter with bottles of frozen water, can anyone suggest easy ways of utilising everyday, household items to keep your vessel cooled down to about 18C for as long as possible?

 

Genius welcomed.

 

Cheers and beers,

Matt.

 

[Smithy]

A fridge [cool]

 

Some people drape a wet towel over their FV and put a fan on it. Could try that.

 

[Guest]

Not sure if your against frozen water bottles all together but i use them to cool a tub of water the FV is in works well. This time of year i only have to replace 2 frozen bottles a day to keep it at right temp. In middle of summer a bit more of a nightmare but yes as smithy and more people will tell you as have me get a fridge but it all comes down to dollars

[MattT15]

The Trouble and Strife took umbridge to me hijacking her fridge to cool my fermenter, but she didn't say anything about the bathtub [cool]

[GregT5]

I set up my brew fridge with temp controller for about $40-.

 

Look on websites like Ebay & Gumtree for cheap 2nd hand fridges.

 

Once you have that set up you can enjoy "set & forget" brewing [biggrin]

[MattT15]

Thanks all - will look into it.

 

How long should the fermenter be chilled for, the first few days or the entire initial fermentation process?

 

 

[Guest]

Keeping and ale around 18 to 20 degrees celcius for the enitire fermentation is recomended

[Guest]

I get a maximum swing of +0.3'c and -0.3'c on any temp I plug in... The amount of stuffing about you will do with any of the other methods will produce greater swing in temps, at the end of the day its all about keeping your yeast happy.

 

Yeast are happy with minimal temp fluctuation amd the steadied the temp the cleaner the resulting beer.

 

Get digital temp control on a fridge amd never look back, honestly you will thank yourself for it and it creates much spare time to do other related things in your brewery.

 

Yob

[Otto Von Blotto]

If I had the room I'd use the temp controlled fridge method too. I don't though, so I have to use the wet towel around the fermenter method. It works well enough for me. I usually manage to get the temp to around 21 or 22\xb0C, would prefer lower but the beer still turns out well. If at some stage in the future room becomes available, will certainly look into the fridge method though![joyful]

 

Cheers,

Kelsey

[Guest]

Thanks all - will look into it.

 

How long should the fermenter be chilled for, the first few days or the entire initial fermentation process?

 

Matt - the fridge has a temperature controller on it which keeps it at a programmed temperature i.e. 18C or whatever you want. You don't just put it in a normal running fridge and leave it.

 

Do a search on some of the ones here. They are cheap and easy to set up and when you can get a fridge for $0 (a lot of give aways) then that is even better.

[Guest]

for the first 12 months or more I had only 1 fridge and it was outside under a yard umbrella [ninja]

[Lord Of The Dans]

Nothing wrong with blocks of ice. I have 2 fv's in an unplugged fridge, and if I change the ice morning and night, I have no probs keeping them at a constant 18 degrees.