Brewing in a college house in a WI winter.

[peanasky]

This coming winter will be my first winter brewing. As many of you mid-westerner's know, the winters up here in Wisconsin get pretty cold. Being a college student and living in a college house, unfortunately the heat doesn't get turned on until Thanksgiving and even then isn't set very high.

I'm figuring the lowest air temp will be around 55F. I'd rather not have to deal with a lager without a fermentation chamber. The plan was to use a dry yeast (US-05 or Notty) with a blanket around the fermenter to help keep the temps closer to 60 during primary fermentation.

Does this sound like a good plan or am I in for some obnoxiously long ferm times with some odd flavors. (I've read that a peachy flavor can come from too low of temps.)

 

[senorswiss]

How about buying a space heater and hooking it up to a temp controller?

 

[HokieBrewer]

I would trade problems with you any day. Look for an ale yeast that digs cool temperatures like Pacman.

 

[Walker]

For about $20 I built this ugly *****:

It's a $15 thermostat from the hardware store that drives a 40W lightbulb.

I have a fridge in the garage that I use as a fermentation chamber. In the winter it gets too cold in the garage and in the fridge, so I put this thing into the fridge and plug it in to warm it up when it's chilly.

If you have a small cabinet or closet, you could do something like this.

 

[permo]

Brew ales with pacman yeast or WLP029.......I live in North Dakota and brew all winter long with the floor of my basement at 55 degrees...Pacman loves it.

Try this...use pacman yeast and brew a nice maibock recipe and let her go all winter cold and serve it in spring.

 

[peanasky]

Thanks for the great advice. For now I guess the plan is to start harvesting some Pacman or get a hold of some WLP029. If that doesn't work out too well then I'll look into some sort of cheap temp control.

 

[944play]

You should look into aquarium heaters. Cheap, submersible (in a water bath, not the beer ), and thermostat built-in!

 

[bonsai4tim]

if you put the fementer in a water bath, and put an aquarium heater in the water bath, you should be good. Just get an aquarium heater that is rated for 2-3 times the volume of the fermenter and the water bath (like a heater for a 55 gal. tank or larger)

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