Hmmm... Summer

[Benji]

Hey Guys,

Just put another brew down but being in Qld and having a few 30C days I am starting to worry about the temp my brew is sitting at (26C). .

Currently it is sitting in the bathroom (no windows) on the cool tile floor with a damp towel around it and occasionally a fan on it (missus won't let me leave the fan on all the time!! ) thus producing the 26C I have at the moment.

Any ideas of how to keep it cool?

[sago]

Benji,
I reckon all of us will have this summer problem but your wet towel with air circulation should be sufficient.Somewhere on this site is talk of packing the outside of the fermenter with ice if the temp. creeps over 28 degrees.My garage( can't fit anything bigger than a mini in,hence is my private retreat) is colourbond and it gets mighty warm at the height of summer but I brewed throughout the hot season last year without dramas.
I reason that a reverse system of the heat belt is the go.
If I have heat issues this summer I will throw a wet blanket round the fermenter and hang a plastic bucket filled with ice over the top with a drip hole punched in.Theory being that the melting ice water will be cold enough to wet the blanket and with enough air circulation should keep the fermenter coolish.
Don't actually know how hot the fermenter gets at the middle of the day when we are at work so we may all have to avoid brewing in heatwaves unless we are around to baby the bugger.

[Oliver]

Hi guys,

Another idea I've heard of is freezing an icecream container full of water and putting the frozen block on top of the fermenter wrapped in a towel, so that as it melts cool water keeps the towel wet.

Cheers,

Oliver

[rain]

Benji (without sounding like a Smartar***) - firstly you could talk to some older citizens about a "coolgardi" (sp) which was a pre-refrigeration/ice-box method of keeping food safe to eat; or secondly, depending where in Qld you are get your fermenter wrapped in wet hessian into a breeze and in shade.
The wet hessian allows air to pass through - a bit like humans sweating. Not like, for instance a wet blanket, which holds the water but could boil on an extreme day.

[dab123]

A very good point Rain,
perhaps a combination of both the ice block drip on hessian ?
apart from a air conditioned shed ( if you can afford one, you dont need to brew your own beer ) it is worth a go, unless your retired like myself
and can sit in front of your brew all day makeing adjustments , Ah! is'nt life grand .
cheers dab.

[thehipone]

HI,

The way I keep my fermenter cool is to put it in a big 100L storage bin filled with water in the shade under my house. The high heat capacity of water keeps temperatures from changing too much during the day. What I do is freeze some 2L soft drink bottles and every morning before going to work I drop a couple of them into the water bath to offset the rise in temperature that will inevitably occur during the hottest parts of the day. If we have a scorcher, I'll throw some ice in after work too to get the temperature back down. Yes, the temperature does fluctuate a bit, but I can usually keep it within 22-25C. You do need some spare room in the freezer to accomodate all of the bottles though. I'm thinking of improving the whole setup by adding some insulation to the bin or getting a big Esky to use instead. best of luck.

[Evo]

A much simpler yet more expensive method would be a small (maybe 2nd hand) bar fridge with another thermostat fitted to it. Damn easy to do, and you'd come out of it at about $150 maybe ($50 for the thermostat, $100 for the fridge). The beauty of it is you can brew a lager in summer (when a lager is probably preferred). You could also use a heat bulb and reverse the thermostat and brew an ale in your fridge in winter. Also you get the benefits of brewing at a constant temp (not hot during day and cold at night). Yeast works much better this way. When you're not brewing, chuck your beer in it.

Hell, I've almost talked MYSELF into buying another one !

Like I said, might cost more, but it's alot less time consuming than rotating containers of ice, and time is money.