Too hot for fermenting, too cheap for a proper solution

[rmeskill]

So it's been so hot in Europe for so long even my basement's too hot to ferment (ended up with a terribly off-flavoured IPA last week-it was almost 30C/85F when I checked it thanks to the fermenting heat) so I'm trying an alternative solution: 20L tub in a 30L tub with a slow trickle of water in the shower. The water coming out of the tap is 22C/71F, so fingers crossed this keeps it cool enough for the S05 in there!

 

[bleme]

Kveik yeast can go up to 37C with no off-flavors.

 

[Soulshine2]

have you tried evaporative cooling?

 

[Jayjay1976]

I don't know where you are in EU but tap water in Germany is expensive! You could set the fermenter in a SHALLOW tub of water, put a wet t-shirt over the fermenter that reaches down into the water and leave a fan running pointed at it. As the water evaporates from the cloth it will cool the fermenter, and the cotton material will continuously wick up water from the tub to stay wet. This can easily get you down another 5-8 degrees below the 71 degree tap water. You don't want too much of the fermenter submerged because that will prevent the temperature of the beer getting down any cooler than the standing water in the tub.

If you insist on sticking with the dripping faucet setup you have, lose the outer bucket and add a t-shirt to the fermenter and point a fan at it to get the most out of the water you are using. Poor folks in Spain and Portugal will have their water rationed and be limited to showering once per week so use some care when setting up your cooling method. Drip drip drip all day long for several days could be wasting hundreds if not thousands of gallons of precious water.

 

[Br3w4u]

I do the above mentioned method with great results. You can also put an ice pack in the water and change it out a couple of times each day to keep the water cold.

 

[Jayjay1976]

I like to fill jugs with ice cold tap water in January and keep them in the garage until mid-August when it's coming out of the faucet at 75 degrees

 

[dawn_kiebawls]

Or you can just brew saisons!

 

[Soulshine2]

not sure how to remedy your issue at hand besides my suggestion, but I can definitely agree with the above poster. in your future brews if you have a limited supply of or expense of your temperature controls are out of "season" you might want to brew beers with yeasts that work within your natural temperatures . I know it limits your varieties but take oktoberfests for example , brewed in Feb to be consumed in Sept, have to work with nature if thats your helper. like trying to snow ski in florida, no snow. Other than that, Can you possibly find a wine cooler and dial the temp to its warmest setting (usually 66*F)?

 

[rmeskill]

Points taken, all. I've added a teeshirt and a fan, but the goal at the end of the day was to mediate temperature swings, which it seems I've done. I measured the output and it's around 2L/hr, which is admittedly not an insignificant amount but also not terrible compared to how much I lose when running my chiller after brewing. I expect to run this for 2-3 days while it ferments and only for a couple brews mid-summer, after that I'll put it back down in the basement once temperatures drop enough again.

 

[small_b_brewing]

I've resorted to the ;shallow water in a tub and frozen water bottle' method when my AC unit couldn't keep up with the heat. I switched in a 2L frozen pop bottle every 12ish hours for the first 5 days of fermentation.
It worked great- one of my better beers in fact! (although there were a couple other factors that might explain it.
I'm in a drought area, so I am very conscious of water use (Used the tub water and melted bottle water on my garden )