Summer in an un-air conditioned brew room is just around the corner... questions...

I know the importance of temperature control through fermentation. I have a simple swamp cooler to combat the warm weather in my un-air conditioned house. I've already been using it to get a feel for what it will require in the hotter months to come.

I bottle and do not have an ideal place for standard fermenting temperatures to store bottles for conditioning. So my question is this...

What are allowable temperatures for the various stages of beer production from pitching to drinking for beer. Let's assume we are working with an ale yeast.

Advise for cheap, practical solutions to potential problems would be appreciated. Thanks in advance!

Where do you live?

I live in one of the hottest regions of the country (SW Arizona) I use a window 5500 BTU AC unit in my (10x10) brew room. It does fine at keeping the room at 65*. I think it all depends on your region.

A swamp cooler should do you fine too...Do a search on the forums and see what pops up :rockin:

Pitch several degrees below your fermentation temps and try to keep the temps under 70 and somewhat stable while primary fermentation is underway. After the fermentation is 75% done then temperature becomes less important and you can just let the temp rise to room temp. Some yeasts are more temp tolerant so you may have to switch to making Belgians during the summer months if you can't control temps. It's worth every penny to build a temp controlled fermentation chamber by the way...

Build a temp controlled fermentation chamber:
Free or very cheap refrigerator off craigslist.
STC 1000 off ebay for $25
$5 or $10 worth of wires, outlet and electrical box from Home Depot.

Frozen bottles of water in the swamp chiller ftw

works in my little un-cooled apartment anyway.

I've never worried about it getting too hot for bottle conditioning. I usually leave my bottles in boxes beside the water heater in the closet no matter the temperature.

I live in CT. It's not THAT bad... but still...

I like your suggestions. My biggest concern is bottle conditioning temps. Anyone think that's important?

Lol... just as I say that hammy ducks in...

DSorenson said:

What are allowable temperatures for the various stages of beer production from pitching to drinking for beer. Let's assume we are working with an ale yeast.

Click to expand...

I live in South Florida and I can understand your troubles. My difficulty was maintaining consistent temps in my swamp cooler. I would wrap a towel around the entire carboy and let the water from the swamp cooler soak up the towel and cover the entire carboy. However, when the ambient temperature is like 90F it is very hard to constantly keep ice packs in the cooler to bring down the temperature.I know you don't have A/C so it will be hard to bring the temps down into the proper yeast range.

If you could keep the proper temps for the first week then that would be an accomplishment. After that the yeast production will slow significantly but you may still see some off flavors. That also goes with carbonation. It will be minor but that will be okay as long as the krausen period was at proper and consistent temps.

Good luck man, I know how hard it is to bring down the temperature. I guess now is the time to start brewing Saison's. The yeast love it in the low 80'sF.

I saw somewhere, I think it was here, a guy trying to make a bottle bomb. He even set up a clear plastic miniature green house style situation in his back yard, in the sun, and still couldn't achieve bottle bomb.

I'll try to find the thread. It really put a lot of my worries at ease.
I always keep my bottles in boxes to avoid shrapnel and cut back on mess in the event of an explosion, but so far, so good!

Here is the thread I mentioned

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f32/bottle-bomb-tester-347655/

Start brewing lots and lots of saisons!

Seriously, though. I would use a situation like that to learn all I could about using saison yeast in different worts with different gravities and hopping schedules.

urbanmyth said:

Start brewing lots and lots of saisons!

Click to expand...

Hell, temperature aside, that's just good, tasty, brew advice

With regard to bottle carb/conditioning temps,they aren't that critical inside the bottles. Normal ferment temp ranges don't apply to bottled beers. Just keep them in the dark & 70F or a lil more. higher temps just seem to make them carb a bit better ime. But it's past the point where off flavors could be generated. No worries there.

Have you tried adding a fan to your swamp cooler set up? I can get 8° to 10° lower temperatures over the wet towel/sweatshirt technique. Ideal would be a used refrigerator with a temperature controller.
Keep your bottles in the dark and out of direct sunlight for conditioning. Higher temperatures are not a real problem with bottle conditioning as it is with fermentation.

In warm weather,I stick to pale ales & the like with highly flocculant clean flavored yeasts. A wet tee shirt & a 12" turbo fan trained on the FV's will bring the temps down some 3 degrees. So chill the wort well,& top off with fridged water.

This is the method I use, and it's cheap, effective and smaller than an dedicated fridge/freezer/chamber: http://braukaiser.com/blog/blog/2013/01/23/improvised-fermentation-temperature-control/

Instead of using ice, I use frozen water bottles and just swap those out.