Brewing In Brisbane Too Hot

[Ade42]

Wow thanks Geoff for your very kind offer!! Unfortunately I'm kinda in Rental Limbo at the moment and am staying at relo's unfinished renovation. they want to sell pretty soon so ill have to keep my possessions kinda "light", It cost a small fortune moving from Newcastle NSW to here in December and If we have to move interstate again I'm trying to have as less as possible! I had to leave my massive LP/Acetate/78rpm collection in the back of a mates shed as the cost of moving a sevral boxes of these cost more than what I paid for originally!

So Until we both have jobs were stuck in this limbo like existence, partner has just secured 1 month Temp job with tax department but even that is not "good enough" for any real estate agent! But I "could" have a job at Bunnings Ill just have to wait and see.

But thanks again, This is what forums (on any topic) should be about, People with a passion for a topic helping each other with their built up knowledge of the subject.
Since being "online" some 16 odd years ive been a member of many thousand forums and in all that time ive never seen a bunch of top blokes anywhere, Offering such advice at the drop of a hat.

Ive been on all kinds of forums where a "newbie" asks some (to him) valid questions and gets abused and ends up giving up.


The Temp issues look pretty good at the moment, I use 6 Ice bottles in rotation and the temp never seems to go above 22-24, It Looks like its around 19-20 most of the time. The Thermometer i think is stuffed kind of.
Its getting all "steamed" up and stuff, well it is underwater, Ill see what's on offer at a BrewShop if I get the chance,

Ill have a look using some Aldi Bottles as well.

Thanks Guys

and thanks RobbieMC Ill keep that in mind. Might make a few "Regular" Tin ones first before venturing into "better beer land"!

 

[Brisfox]

What about 750 ml wine bottles with the screw cap lids. Would they be any good or are the lids no good under pressure?

 

[scoundrel]

all i ever do is 2-3 frozen coke/juice bottles and the drape a wet towel over the top and sit the hole lot in the bath tub.

but my first batch was a morgans stout, that sat in a shed at my last rental that got up to 38c and dropped to 11c at night. it still tasted great after a couple months in the bottle. the moral of the story, there's no such thing as a bad beer(most of the time) and kits are ******* hard to kill.

 

[Benbrewer]

What about 750 ml wine bottles with the screw cap lids. Would they be any good or are the lids no good under pressure?

You probably won't get a seal on the wine bottles that you could guarantee unless you can get screw top sparkling wine bottles and I don't know if they can take the same pressure as beer or soft drinks. You could give it a go if you are prepared to waste some beer. If it works or doesn't post it on the forum so we can all learn. You never know, it might be a new untapped resource!

 

[slowlearner]

Hey ADE.
I'm down in tamworth where it's jusy as hot as up there, except it's dry as a nun's nasty.
I had the same problem as you on my first brew, pitched the yeast @ 26deg, thought I'd killed it, but was not toooo bad once I got to the end of the batch after 3 months.
Over the course of my brewing days I've experimented with a few cooling set-ups. I tried the A)towel trick, but couldn't get the temp down past approx 21deg. Tried sitting it in B)a shallow tray made of MDF with water in it with the towel around it soaking up water, same thing. Tried C)adding a small reseviour of water with a small pond pump circulating water to the top of he fermenter and letting it run down the outside with a fan blowing on it, still not better than 20deg approx.

I remembered seeing a thread elsewhere on this site mentioning a can-cooler that can fit 100 cans that are perfect for the job. I set out to all the camping stores but the best I could do was still way too small. I eventually stumbled across one at Bunnings for $32. It's collapsable, made of flexible esky material with a zipper lid. The COOPERS fermenter fit in it perfectly, I just had to cut a small slit in the lid for the airlock to sit thru. I experimented with different size bottles of salty water, finding 600ml coke bottles not enough. I'm currently using 2.4ltr juice bottles filled with salty frozen water. They fit in snuggly around the fermenter. I had a crack at a wheat beer a month ago, I was using 3 bottles which I would replace every morning to keep the temp low and stable thru the day. I found I had approx 7-8deg, a bit low. I had to knock it back to just the 1 bottle to get approx 13-14deg.

If you want a good cheap way of cooling, I reckon the cooler bag is king.

I would love to go the old fridge and a temp controller, but alas, selling my wares on the street corner isn't what it used to be. May have to invest in the back, sack and crack again.....

 

[Bribie G]

Ok, here's a method I have been using for brewing at around 21 degrees in SEQ in a garage that gets up to 37 when locked up. Now that we have lost the hot nights I reckon this will see me through till the cooler months.

I have a dead fridge plus PET bottles and this is great for my 18 degree brews, change only once a day at the moment or twice a day if I want to hit 14 or so.

However to ramp up production I'm doing some ales and have, for some time, been using this 'overflow' area for the brews that don't need to be in the main ferm. fridge. Currently an old ale and a braggott (honey beer) both using US-05. They can sit quite nicely on 21 degrees or a tad less depending on ambient using the following system:

Here's the sequence using a towel on the floor, a big beach towel and a single doonah (chinese feather variety, cheap as chips from reject shop or wherever) and a couple of frozen 2L pets. You can just see the other PET through the crack between the fermenters.



No water baths, wet towels etc.

Floats my boat.

The general principle is that once the brew gets down to about 20 then there is a fair amount of 'thermal inertial mass' there and it's easy to hold the temperature there fairly constantly provided the brew is well insulated.

Change bottles morning and night.