High Temps In Melbourne

[bignath]

I have said this many many times and i dont mind saying it again if it helps.

By brewing your own beer, you are actually paying yourself! And the cost of a $50 fridge is nuthing in the grand plan!

If you bought beer by the carton.... say something nice like coopers pale ale...... or LCPA ..... whats that cost a carton these days?....... about $50 to $80

Lets run with a nice $60 carton of beer that wouldnt be hard to make yourself! VB is not far off this so its a fair price.

Now....... $60 divided by 9 liters (0.375 x 24) is $6.66 a liter or by comparison..... $153.33 for a 23 liter batch comparison.

It will cost you $30 at the most to make a batch and thats being optomistic.

Is it starting to make sence yet?...... thats a $123 saving in one batch of beer.

Brew 4 batches and you have just under $500 in the hand. $400 if your buying VB.

Please use half of this profit from your first 4 batches of home brew to INVEST in a fridge and set it up for brewing. IT will enable you to ferment at 10 deg with lager yeasts, cold condition, make ales at 18 deg in 40 deg summer heat and insure the quality of the product you spen you money on.

You are mad if you dont!

cheers

*presses PRINT and leaves on wife's desk to casually peruse over her morning coffee.

I could do with some more kegs, another fridge, march pump, my own hop garden......

 

[alien13]

If you are having trouble with the hot weather than along with your frozen bottles, wrap a towel around the fermenter and the frozen bottle so it sort of holds the bottle close to the fermenter, and then, if you have one, throw a sleeping bag around it all (leaving the airlock free for air), and if needed, peg it so that it holds.

If you do this, 1 bottle (2 litre frozen) will last a while and keep your brew cold. From my first brew a couple weeks ago, I kept my fermenter at around 18C (stick on thermometer). Surprisingly enough, when I took a reading towards the end of fermentation, I drained some into the tube and took a temp reading and it came out at around 16C straight from the fermenter, so that's good enough for me to be happy with this method until I can get a fridge (not high on my list since this method works pretty good and could probably get it cooler with 2 or 3 bottles in there at once).

[I grabbed this technique from BribieG (I think it was) on these forums there are some pics around here somewhere]

Good luck!

-Nathan

 

[Hoser]

I've only been making brews for a year now and I have to agree wet towel or t-shirt works well. Trying something different this time with even better results (whilst I shop for a fridge and temp controller).

I placed the fermenter in a tub filled with water and sat it in a dark room where the temp is a bit cooler. It's stayed on 18 degrees for 8 days now. Only concern that I didn't think about at first is will the tap get contaminated sitting in a bin with water. I assume no since it's closed but made a change my first night after only a few hours to be sure. I wrapped the tap in aluminum foil (pre sanitised) and placed the fermenter back in the bin filled with water. Does anyone know if letting your fermenter sit in a bin with water is putting your brew at risk? Pretty sure it's ok but worth the question I guess. Read a similar process recommended on the How to Brew site.

If it's safe that way I can highly recommend it!

 

[Tony]

back before i had a fridge, i used to mix water and metho 50/50 and soak a towl around the fermenter. a fan on it and the temp drop of evaporating alcahol will keep the brew cool better than just water.

I could keep a beer at 20 deg in 35 deg heat if i kept it wet. When i was at work it was a struggle but the wife would wet it for me if i asked nicely.

I got sick of this and still using the $70 fridge 7 years later

 

[bignath]

does it increase the risk? yeah probably it does.....

not so much to the brew inside i would have thought, but come time to get the beer out, you certainly need to think about cleaning and sanitising that tap before you do anything else like connect the bottling wand, or transfer hose to secondary/keg.

I am only doing it this way because i've run out of room in my fermentation fridge. I was going to leave it at ambient temp in my laundry, but i didn't see the hot weather coming and had to improvise. That same laundry got pretty bloody hot yesterday and today.

My brew is currently at 21/22 degrees, which is not ideal but it's a hell of a lot better than tipping 5 hours of AG wort down the drain or fermenting it at ambiemt 28/30 degrees in the laundry....

 

[Hoser]

yeah was thinking that I'd sanitise the heck out of the tap. Any ideas on how to get into the tap to sanitise it? Can spray up inside with a bottle at every angle possible that should reach most I think. What will you do?

 

[bignath]

was thinking of backing the tap off half a turn so that the spout is facing upwards. Providing it doesn't drop all my precious all over my thongs....

 

[chadjaja]

My saison is just about ready to keg It got down to 1004 too! Ahhh the beast that 3742 is.. I love the hot patch as its perfect for them especially upstairs.

I put down an ale the other week and two days after pitching I went out for a night and didn't get to change the ice blocks in the set up I have. It went from 18 to 25 degrees for 24 hours then back down to 18 degrees. My gravity at the time was about 1020 and I was using 1056..... I'd normally rack it by now to dry hop but i'm leaving it a little longer in primary to hopefully clean up any by products of that one day and the sample tastes....'ok'ish'. Was expecting a few more ethols etc. Will be interesting to see how it turns out as its the first brew that hasn't been fermented at ideal temp in a long time.

My main prob at the moment is adjusting the strike temp so I don't overheat my mash and the delay and inability to cool down a brew due to the ground water temp. Should really make that pre chiller but finding the small amount of copper is proving to be a challenge.

 

[DU99]

Mould issue i wipe mine out with antiseptic wipes,i have keg condtioning in one fridge..have to completed assembly of my tempmate

 

[manticle]

I've only been making brews for a year now and I have to agree wet towel or t-shirt works well. Trying something different this time with even better results (whilst I shop for a fridge and temp controller).

I placed the fermenter in a tub filled with water and sat it in a dark room where the temp is a bit cooler. It's stayed on 18 degrees for 8 days now. Only concern that I didn't think about at first is will the tap get contaminated sitting in a bin with water. I assume no since it's closed but made a change my first night after only a few hours to be sure. I wrapped the tap in aluminum foil (pre sanitised) and placed the fermenter back in the bin filled with water. Does anyone know if letting your fermenter sit in a bin with water is putting your brew at risk? Pretty sure it's ok but worth the question I guess. Read a similar process recommended on the How to Brew site.

If it's safe that way I can highly recommend it!

I do it often but I spray the tap with no rinse every time it gets used (hydrometer sample etc). Also change the water regularly and you can even stick a bit of sodium percarb/napisan in it if you're concerned.
Just point the nozzle up there. Crud I clean out with new cotton buds if I get any in there

 

[Bribie G]

Nearly all the flavour compounds are fully completed after three or four days (e.g. fusels oils, nail polish, banana etc that you can get from high temperatures) so your batch should be ok. Many kit yeasts and even some specialist yeasts like Irish Ale can quite comfortably handle mid-20s anyway although best to keep as close to 20 as possible.

 

[MarkyMark]

If you can't afford a working fridge, then try a dead one. With a couple of frozen bottles it'll stay cool even on hot days and it won't cost you a cent.

I used to do the wet towel trick, but my dead fridge (got it from my next door neigbour) does the trick over the summer and is heaps less mucking around. I just put two x 2L frozen bottles in before I go to work each morning and it keeps it nicely at 18 - 20.

Cheers

Mark