Temp Control During Fermentation - Please Help A Newbie

[shaunms]

So during my very first brew the weather behaved its self and the temp was around 21 degrees for the entire week of fermentation, everything went swimmingly.
Now winter has well and truly set in and the temp of my last batch <and 2nd ever> was between 16 to 18 degrees and I think I was lucky enough that everything worked out well again, although I may have bottled a little early, anyway.

So now I want to create my Stout Toucan but I am worried about the temp dropping even further. I don't want to spend alot of money so I thought about buying a bar fridge off ebay and then hooking up a temperature controller to help maintain an temp of about 20 degrees however I have no real idea how this works or what I am talking about.
To me this sounds like the temp will drop below 15 degrees.

The more I read about this the more confused I get.

Really what I am looking for is a cheap way to cool my beer in summer and heat it in winter to maintain a constant temp of around 20 degrees, from what I have read that is what I should be focusing on.

I would love to hear from you experts, in simple English please, what you have done to solve this problem or maybe you can forward on a nice and simple article that even an idiot <that's how I am feeling right now> can easily follow.

I know I maybe pushing my luck here, but as I am new to Australia and only recently got to know what an Esky was, pictures <or links to pictures> would be great.

Thanks in advance to all those who are going to help me with this and thanks to all those that have already helped with my last 2 questions.

Shaun

 

[Screwtop]

Forget bar fridges. Get an old 380L+ jobbie secondhand, look around $80 - $120 so you can fit 2 fermenters in when the need arises. Buy a Tempmate to control the fridge for cooling or a light globe inside the fridge for winter.

Cheers,

Screwy

 

[Verbyla]

Ok well if your wanting to maintain a constant temperature you should get a tempmate. These basically monitor the temperature of your brew with a sensor and then relay electricity to either a fridge or heater to increase or decrease the temperature to the range you set it to. You would have found that even when you had 21 degree days the temperature of your brew at night would have fallen at night.

It will cost you about $60 to put together the tempmate. I know its not what some consider cheap but it is a perfect investment for your future brewing as it offers a constant temperature 24/7.

You'll have to do a search and keep reading to fully understand it all but its worth the time and effect.

I've never done a stout before but i'm guessing 21C would be a little high. Another thing that could aid your furture brewing is to research the correct temperatures to brew your brews at. Eg largers at 12C, ales at 18C or ciders around 15C

 

[daemon]

Most bar fridges aren't big enough to fit a fermenter in, although you can be lucky with some models. You'd want to inspect them first and measure them first, personally I was lucky enough to buy one for under $20 and can fit a fermenter in.

Before that I was using a big red tub ($9 at Bunnings) with an old towel and frozen bottles of water. It wasn't ideal but a good step in the right direction.

Also, try a search on "100 can cooler" as a number of other people have used it with good success.

 

[megs80]

It wont give you a stout. But have you thought about a lager yeast and sticking your fermenter in a colder spot? Try White labs liquid yeast, WLP833 German bock yeast. It will give you a tasty beer and will work best around 10 degrees but 15 at start and 18 degrees last couple of days is fine.
In the end if you want to brew great beer you have to control fermentation, it is one of the most important factors. Splurge on a fridge and a tempmate. You won regret it.

Cheers

 

[katzke]

So during my very first brew the weather behaved its self and the temp was around 21 degrees for the entire week of fermentation, everything went swimmingly.
Now winter has well and truly set in and the temp of my last batch <and 2nd ever> was between 16 to 18 degrees and I think I was lucky enough that everything worked out well again, although I may have bottled a little early, anyway.

So now I want to create my Stout Toucan but I am worried about the temp dropping even further. I don't want to spend alot of money so I thought about buying a bar fridge off ebay and then hooking up a temperature controller to help maintain an temp of about 20 degrees however I have no real idea how this works or what I am talking about.
To me this sounds like the temp will drop below 15 degrees.

The more I read about this the more confused I get.

Really what I am looking for is a cheap way to cool my beer in summer and heat it in winter to maintain a constant temp of around 20 degrees, from what I have read that is what I should be focusing on.

I would love to hear from you experts, in simple English please, what you have done to solve this problem or maybe you can forward on a nice and simple article that even an idiot <that's how I am feeling right now> can easily follow.

I know I maybe pushing my luck here, but as I am new to Australia and only recently got to know what an Esky was, pictures <or links to pictures> would be great.

Thanks in advance to all those who are going to help me with this and thanks to all those that have already helped with my last 2 questions.

Shaun

Dont you heat your house? I live where it is cold and I use a wood stove to try and keep the frost off the inside of the windows. When I am comfortable my brews are comfortable. During active fermentation they make there own heat and I may wrap them up in an extra towel. If they get cold I will warm them up with a heat pad or move them out by the stove.

To cut a long story short put the fermentor in an extra bath tub or in the kitchen with a towel around it to keep the light off as well as keep it warm. If you are comfortable the brew will be just fine.

Now summer presents a different problem as I try and run the air as little as possible.

 

[Yeldarb]

Forget bar fridges. Get an old 380L+ jobbie secondhand, look around $80 - $120 so you can fit 2 fermenters in when the need arises. Buy a Tempmate to control the fridge for cooling or a light globe inside the fridge for winter.

Cheers,

Screwy

+1...best thing I have done to improve beer and remove a point of stress from the process.

I was lucky enough to get a fridge from a friend (without freezer in the top which is perfect) and bought a tempmate...at the moment the fridge is out in the shed where it is about 0c...inside the fridge is perfect 17.5c (with about 56ltrs of Fourstar's Amber Ale on the go )

I see Jaycar have a new range of temperature controllers this year...

 

[muckey]

+1...best thing I have done to improve beer and remove a point of stress from the process.

couldn't agree more. get the temperature control and sanitization nailed brewing becomes easy. It's worth spending time and money on this as its something you'll always need regardless of how you brew.

Upgrading to a tempmate was 1 of the best things I've done. makes temp control extra easy. I now let that take care of itself and devote my tiome and effort to my brewday and allow myself to be OCD with all the other processes of brewing

 

[Fourstar]

with about 56ltrs of Fourstar's Amber Ale on the go

My AAA aye! The one from teh Recipe DB or the 'what are you brewing II thread?'

 

[AussieJosh]

Simple way to not spend any money....if your room temp is under 18 brew beers with a lager yeast. if you wish to brew at 18 or above with an ale yeast simply get your self a heat pad or belt for between 20-60 dollers and they will raise your beer 3 or 4 degrees above what it would have been with out them! Simple!
I have a heat pad, but honestly id just try to stick to brewing beers with a lager yeast during winter.

 

[manticle]

Cheaparse brewer here (mainly due to necessity).

I have a dedicated brew fridge (working and a gift from a friend) with no temp/fridge mate that I use for cold conditioning, lagering and storing grain and hops. For ales in Victorian winter conditions I simply keep them off the floor, use a forgiving yeast, wrap them in blankets and occassionally use my brew belt heater (monitored to avoid too high temps). It's worked ok so far. Expenditure has been minimal. If I fridgemate my brew fridge I'll have nowhere to store my hops and yeast slants.

You could also get a large esky (which can double as a mash tun when /if you start using grain) filled with some warm water or use a laundry tub or sink (I've done this with iced water for primary ferment of lagers and it's been ok).

You can brew good ales in winter.

 

[HoppingMad]

As the guys have mentioned you have a ton of options:

Here they are from cheapest to most expensive:

1- Do nothing, buy lager yeast and brew lagers in the cold, and ales when it warms up in the spring.
2- Bring your fermenter out of the coldest part of the house/shed and into the warmer bit. Room temperature in a house with a heating system should give you the ale yeast temp you need.
3- Use an electric blanket, or heater belt/pad with a timer so that it only runs during the colder parts of the day like at night. ($6-$10 for a timer from a hardware store)
4- Buy an aquarium heater from ebay for around $15 + P&H. Use that to heat your brew by submerging it in. Plenty of folks on AHB do it successfully.
5- Buy a heater/brewbelt controller for between $60-$110. These control the heat of your pad/belt with a thermostat and shut off the power when it gets too hot. Typically used for heating reptile enclosures - so available at pet stores & ebay ($60-$69) or at suppliers like Grain and Grape and ibrew ($119/$95).
6- Buy a dual purpose thermostat like one of the ones at ibrew.com.au - that don't need wiring to your fridge $145. This will do the same as a heater/brewbelt controller but also control your fridge's cooling for cooling ale temps down in summer. You adjust by flicking the switch.
7- Buy a fridgemate, if you're not adept at wiring you're looking at calling out a sparky to wire it to your fridge so all up high $100s. Details on these on the craftbrewer site & mashmaster.
8- Buy a tempmate - a more expensive unit but now growing in popularity, if not wiring yourself could set you back over $200. Details on these on the craftbrewer site & mashmaster.

There are a few other options - like using modified Jaycar temp controllers which are cheap but there have been recent posts about these going on the fritz and people having to take them back to the shop so I wouldn't recommend this option myself.

I use the manual controllers personally, but the most popular choice on AHB appears to be a fridgemate with wiring done yourself to attach it to a fridge.

Whatever you choose, you're doing the right thing by investing in good temp control - it's the one thing that has improved my brews out of sight.

Hopper.

 

[buttersd70]

As the guys have mentioned you have a ton of options:

Here they are from cheapest to most expensive:

snip

2 (ii): Hot water bottle in a dead fridge/esky/brocolli box/old sleeping bag. Low tech, sometimes fiddly (depending on the choice of insulator), but certainly a do-able option.

(having said that, definately agree with the first response in the thread, adn all of the echoes of that.)

 

[Screwtop]

Fermenting in ambient = fluctuating temps Day/Night

Stable Fermentation = Good Fermentation = Better Beer

Stable fermenting temps were one of the first improvements made by commercial breweries, thats why they spend so much on fermentation temperature control.

Want good/better beer or cheap beer ???

Screwy

 

[Yeldarb]

My AAA aye! The one from teh Recipe DB or the 'what are you brewing II thread?'

From the "What has been your best extract recipe". I couldn't follow it to the letter, as I didn't have any Amber ME (recently bought some bulk LME) so I added a little more Caramalt (I think)...very much looking forward to this :icon_chickcheers:

 

[acoggins]

I brew mine in a cupboard in the laundry. I fitted a bayonet light socket low down and I keep an eye on the temp, swapping the bulbs between 25W, 40W and 60W depending on the need. Minimal cost!

 

[manticle]

Want good/better beer or cheap beer ???

Screwy

Sometimes dependent on what people can actually afford rather than just being tightarses though. I know my current set-up is.

 

[muckey]

thankfully I obtained aworking fridge and used a timer to turn it on/off for some time before getting a tempmate (same time used for heating solution in winter) and manually checked a thermometer to work out the timer intervals I needed.

if I hadn't get a cheap fridge I'd still be using blankets and hot/cold water bottles to regulate the temperature.

The method doesn't matter here, they all work and some are easier than others, just the fact that you need to regulate the temperature.

 

[Fourstar]

From the "What has been your best extract recipe". I couldn't follow it to the letter, as I didn't have any Amber ME (recently bought some bulk LME) so I added a little more Caramalt (I think)...very much looking forward to this

sounds good mate, hopefully its enjoyable!

Cheers! :icon_cheers:

 

[BjornJ]

how do you use the manual timers for a fridge to get 16-18 degrees?

I have bought one of those time-controlled power thingies from BigW, cost like $7.
I was thinking to plug my little bar fridge to this and play with how often the fridge has to turn on.
the timer has 15 minute intervals I can turn on/off.
(my 15 liter cube fits perfectly in the fridge)




Any advice on where to start testing?
15 minutes every 2 hours, maybe?

thanks
Bjorn