Waterbaths

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robbiep

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Hi guys,

Started my first brew 2 days ago (Coopers lager extract).

I have been using a waterbath and it has worked well.

My cellar has been sitting at around 21-22 degrees, but with rotating a few frozen waters bottles (i.e. 4 in the bath, 4 in the freezer) i have managed to keeps temps around 19-20 degrees.

A fridge would be ideal, but using as waterbath and ice has worked really well with not much effort.

Going to give my first AG brew a go in a 15l cube, which i think will work really well in the water bath (size wise).

Cheers,
Robbie
 
Happy days then Robbie, congratulations on getting your maiden under way! :beer:
Temperature regulation is worth every bit of effort and rewards you with clean, consistent flavour without any of the unpleasantness from runaway/ uncontrolled ferment. Sorting this from the outset will bypass many of the hassles that novices encounter.
WRT the 15L cube, yes you can ferment in them for sure and it can be very handy and efficient to do that in many of the fridges/ cooling systems used by brewers (eg. simultaneous multiple ferments), however be mindful that if you don't have sufficient head space in the cube then krausen will make a horrible mess when it overflows.
Good luck, let us know if you have any queries of course. :icon_cheers:
 
Thanks for the reply!

If things go well with the first two brews (extract and ag), then i think ill look into getting a fridge in the new year.

With regards to the 15l cube, i only plan to do 9l brews, so 6l should be enough headspace?
 
A thing to remember when doing a water bath is don't forget to sanitizing the tap, you have been providing it with the perfect place for nastys to live and breed.
 
Sanitise the tap anyway (before and after use - hydrometer samples, racking to bottling bucket etc) and break apart and clean:sanitise every brew.

My experience of fermenting in cubes is that they don't need nearly as much headspace as barrel fermenters. If you do get leakage, it will be contained in your water bath so simply clean the cube straight away and spray with no-rinse.

Water baths and cube fermentation are reasonably easy and effective ways of primitive temperature control and minimising cleaning.
 
with regards to the water bath, i actually added some non scented bleach into the water bath. It was only about a cup or two in about 20-30l water, so im sure that will keep things sterile.
 
with regards to the water bath, i actually added some non scented bleach into the water bath. It was only about a cup or two in about 20-30l water, so im sure that will keep things sterile.


It may help reduce the risk of contamination but it won't make anything sterile. Look up the meaning of sterile and sterilisation.

Sanitise the tap any time you use it (and if in a water bath, before and after is good, especially if you use something easily sprayed and not rinsed like starsan).
 
Bleach will kill for a while but bleach is also just throwing out chlorine and it will wear out. It's a good idea to do it though, the less there are to start with the fewer you end up with ...

Like Man tickle said, quick squirt of starsan/another no-rinse sanitizer into the tap and around and ur good. Maybe give it a wipe with a paper towel before spraying it. That bleach water is slimy... Ugh.
 
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