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Constant ferment temps...

vincemaz

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Been brewing about 6 months now.  So I have a pretty good all-grain setup, but am fermenting in a not controlled basement around 60 degrees.  Looking for a good yet not too costly way to maintain a constant temperature while fermenting.  All ideas appreciated.
 
You have many options.

Option 1:  Buy a larger "used" apartment sized fridge.  One of those fridges just big enough for one fermenter, put a Johnson Temp Controller on it and you have a way to control temp.  You can usually find them on Craigslist for $20 to $50.  If you want to expand it, remove the door and build a box that will hold two more fermenters that is open on an end (attaches to the fridge at this opening) and open on the side (the opening needs to fit your soon to be repositioned door).  Liquid nail the open end to the fridge where the door used to be.  Put the door on the other opening.  Insulate it, hook up your temp controller and you now have a fermentation chamber than can hold three fermenters.

Option 2:  For cooling only.  Put your fermenter into a shallow container of water (4" deep water level).  Wrap a damp towel around your fermenter and put a fan blowing on it.  This will drop your fermenter down about 4F to 6F from ambient room temperature.

Option 3:  If your room is always cooler than you want to ferment at, you can wrap a heating pad around it and plug it into a Johnson temperature controller.  Put the "sanitized" temperature probe into your wort.  If the wort gets too cold, it will turn the heating pad on and warm up your beer.  When it gets too temperature, it will turn the heating pad off.  If you don't want to spend the money on the temperature controller, you can monitor the temperature yourself and manually turn it on or off, as needed.



 
I use Scott's Option 2 in winter by filling the container of water (I use a big plastic bin that holds two ferment buckets) to the same level as the level of wort in the fermenters (no higher or they'll will float!) and dropping in a temp-adjustable aquarium heater between the fermenters. Helps to insulate the bin. I picked up the heater for less than $10.
 
I'm sure there's a reason, but why couldn't I just put the heater in the wort?
 
I've seen heat-tape belts for sale that you can wrap around the fermenter to raise the temperature.

Here's an example from a quick google.

http://www.amazon.com/Brew-Belt-Fermentation-Heating-1-Count/dp/B001D6IUB6

I imagine they can be teamed up with with thermostats. 
 
Some people hang an aquarium heater in the wort but it's just another source of contamination. I've built a temperature controlled fridge so I can do lagers. Before that I used an aquarium heater in a bucket of water and that worked very well.
 
Just get a free (or cheap) refrigerator.

I am using one I picked up for free with a $15.00 ebay controller, and it holds within 1.5 degrees even when fermentation is most active.

You can get a small dorm room fridge, but then you still have to figure out the rest of the insulated box. Much easier to just use a fridge, and it won't really take up much, if any more floor space. I removed the molded plastic shelving from the inside of the door for more room inside, and can easily fit 2 carboys, or 4 cases of bottles.

I'm using 2 coffee cup warmers for heat but there are several cheap options. At one point when I had an ale fermenting with the unit set at 67 degrees, the fridge actually kicked on, but only during the most vigorous 24 hours, probably on day 2 or 3. Ambient temps in the room the fridge sits in have been right around 50 degrees.

With this setup you could do ales or lagers, just not both at the same time.  :)

Good luck!
 
I experimented using a small 15 watt heat mat used for seed starting.  I had my fermenting bucket in a bedroom where it was 64 deg.  I put only a small corner of the heat mat under the 6.5 gallon fermenting bucket that was sitting on wood laminate floor.  It warmed up the beer over night from a 68 deg pitch temp to 73 degrees.  I let it get too hot, and you can taste it in the beer. Maybe if I had left it sit on the yeast longer it would have been ok.

So I probably had less than 5 watts of heat under the beer and it raised the temp almost 10 degrees from ambient.  Now I am just happier with the slower 64 deg ferment...but I would probably try this again if I was fermenting at 60.  I'm not recommending the use of a heat mat, I am just saying you probably do not need much heat.
 
Keep in mind that the yeast produces heat. Count on the fermenting wort to be two to six degrees warmer than ambient, just from the yeast activity alone.
 
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