Hefe Fermenting Temp

I live out in Colorado where many of the homes do not have AC. With that being said, it can get somewhat hot throughout the house (~75 degrees). I have been reading that the best temperature to ferment a hefe is 60-65. Will my hefe not turn out well if it had been at the 73-75 temp when fermenting? What are some options I would have to keep it cooler during the fermentation process and do I just need to keep it cooler like this during the first 3 days or so, or throughout?

Thanks!

Go to walmart/kmart and buy yourself one of those round rope handle tubs. Fill it with water about 20% full. Set fermenter in the water. Place a cotton T-shirt over the fermentor with the bottom of it hanging in the water.

The cotton T will wick water up it's surface. Place a fan in the room blowing on the fermentor/t-shirt. The evaporation of the water will assist in cooling your wort. Your job is to monitor the temp and water level. Adding ice and water as necessary to the setup to keep the wort at the temp you want, and to keep the water level high enough to reach the bottom of the T-shirt.

Edit: this works with any container big enough to hold a fermentor, rubbermaid bins, the short ones, work great.

Got it, thanks! Should I take the temperature directly in the wort with a sanitized thermometer or best to just take temp of water outside in the tub?

Your Heff will be fine. It will just have a more banana than clove taste. Its up to your tastebuds as to whether that is good or not.

If money is not an issue I would recommend getting a kegerator, a fermwrrap, a Ronco dule stage temp controller and a carboy cap with a thermowell.

You can get rubber stoppers and carboy caps with a thermowell in them. You may have to lightly sand the temp sensor on the Ronco to get it to fit in the thermowell. Once you get the sensor to fit you can control your fermentation temps to within a degree. Just set the temp on the Ronco and plug the kegerator and fermwrap into it and let it go.

I second the above comment. I recently brewed a hefe and have it bottled and tasted already. My temps were probably high for the later parts of fermentation, i.e. the low to mid 70s. As such, I got a lot of banana flavor and not as much of the spicy clove that I'm used to with hefes. Is this a problem? Maybe for some, but I like trying new things and it still tastes pretty good even if it doesn't taste "right".

inter01 said:

Got it, thanks! Should I take the temperature directly in the wort with a sanitized thermometer or best to just take temp of water outside in the tub?

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Ideally, like tipsy dragon says, you'd have a thermowell in a stopper on your carboy. But since you don't, you can do it like I have from day one, and just tape your BBQ Thermometer probe to the side of the carboy. Thoroughly tape it over to insulate it from the damp T-shirt.

In general though, the temps you're talking about aren't going to be too far out of the range, so you may just be able to get by with some cool water and not worrying about ice too much.

Also, if you want more info on this cooling system, search for "swamp cooler" on these forums.