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1) Can I just place my fermentation tank in this tub of water to counter the heat? Yes. This will work to a degree (ha, ha.) The water is slowly but constantly evaporating. The energy need to make liquid water into gas comes out of the water's temperature. This "evaporative cooling" will help cool your wort by a few degrees.
2) Will this method work during ...
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This method is sometimes referred to as a "swamp cooler", and is well known and used in homebrewing circles. Honestly, if the brew shop employee told you it wouldn't work then they are either (a) trying to sell you a brewing fridge, or (b) not that educated on homebrewing.
Change out some ice packs in the water twice a day and you get get down to the low ...
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In terms of controlling esters/fusels/flavors, my understanding is that temperature control is most important in the first 48-72 hours of fermentation. But in terms of yeast happiness, temp control can be more important for a longer stretch.
If the temperature of the beer will rise after you turn off temp control, then you don't have a big problem. But if ...
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You may want to check out brewpi - it's a fermentation monitor, but isn't limited to just fermentation. The temperature devices used are DS18B20 temperature probes. You can get these pre-made in waterproof housing from sellers on ebay - the project also has a shop that sells them. The manufacturers claim they are accurate to +/- 0.5 C, although my tests ...
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My guess is that it's functioning as it should - most home thermometers that aren't calibrated are usually off by anywhere from 2-5 degrees F or more. Assuming your Johnson controller is the most accurate of the 3, then getting 45F and 52F can be considered within tolerance if the actual temperature is 50F.
One other thing that may be a surprise is that ...
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I have 3 of these in my brewery. During autotune, the temperature will go well past the set point in order to determine the amount the system will overshoot, and it will need to do this several times, meaning you may have to leave the unit for possibly several hours before the autotune is complete.
Autotune worked well for me, so I didn't try setting the ...
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Absolutely. If you need to cool the bucket further you could alternate adding ice packs to maintain your fermenting temps.
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Cold water alone will not drop your temperatures eight degrees. You will need ice packs. A more readily available option is to go out and buy a case of water bottles from the store, freeze a couple of bottles, and just rotate them out every 6-8 hours by placing them in the water of the swamp cooler. Take an old cotton t-shirt and pull it over the top of ...
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They must be referring to the temperature of the yeasties themselves, which would be the fermenter temperature. Nothing else makes sense.
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You are doing the right thing. Ambient temperature (aka the air temperature inside the chest) can go low like this, but since the probe is taped to the fermentation vessel, and the controller is calling for chilling, then chilling is what is needed. The thermal mass of the chest walls, cooling tubes, freon, and the air in the chest all might be below your ...
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Not sure of your location or budget, but Home Depot is selling a great chest freezer for an awesome price. Here's a discussion on Homebrew Talk where some kind individual took the time to diagram out all the possibilities for what you can do with it as far as buckets, carboys, kegs, CO2 tanks, everything (and other freezers if you settle for something else)....
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First, unless the starter temp goes over maybe 90F, there is no damage to the yeast itself. second, for a starter of the size that you'll need for a tripel, the best course of action is to decant the spent wort before pitching so it won't have any flavor effect on your beer. remember, with a starter you're growing yeast, not making beer, and a starter ...
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The aquarium heaters are not heating all of the water, but only the water around each heater.
This will form convection currents around each heater - the heated water only moves upwards, and rises up to the surface, at the same time water at the surface cools and sinks. The convection currents are probably only a few inches around each heater, depending ...
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As you drink the beer, more CO2 needs to be put in the keg to maintain the carbonation level. For beer at 65-75F°F, that's quite warm, and you'll need around 25psi to maintain the carbonation level. My guess is that you weren't holding the keg at this pressure, so it slowly loses carbonation as the beer is consumed.
Dispensing at this pressure can be ...
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It uses peltier devices - a thermoelectric cooling/heating device - when a current is applied they chill on one side and warm the other. They're quite common but relatively inefficient in terms of energy compared to a compressor that you'd find in a fridge. Their efficiency is based on how quickly you can dissipate the heat generated. Thermal design is a key ...
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Most of the heat is usually lost through the lid in coolers. Cooler lids are not well insulated. The bodies are. This is because they are meant to keep things cold not hot. Heat rises and a cooler lid isn't designed to actually handle it. Some coolers are better than others. I have used several and found wide differences.
I found that if I covered the ...
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Beer needs to be warmer when you bottle condition. This allows the yeast to work hard at getting the priming sugar into CO2. However, too warm and the beer will stale faster.
I recommend moving the box to a cooler area of the house (like a cupboard that is not against a wall that gets direct sunlight). DO NOT COOL THE BEER! Leave it for two weeks, then put ...
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Optimal about 18C-20C. But almost any temperature between 5 and 25 will work. If cooler then it takes longer. It is possible to go higher but there may be some more fruity esters produced although not very much... Best keep it at lower temperature range of 15-20C for about two weeks or so.
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I'm also looking for a similar solution - don't really want to mess about with extra water baths, and I have a controller that can control both a heater and a cooler.
I would think any low wattage pad would do the job - in the region of 30W-50W would be plenty to maintain the temperature inside the fridge. I think it makes sense you want the pad to be ...
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I've used a $15 "aquarium heater" to get a Belgian beer up to 84F to fully dry it out. These gadgets are designed to be submerged all the time without any risk, so long as you follow the instructions. I put my carboy in a water bath, which was just a big cooler, and put the heater below the water level of the cooler. Seemed to work fine for me. I raised my ...
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It depends upon how hot the heat pad gets - you want to use a pad that doesn't go above 30°C/85°F. I use a waterproof pad that was originally intended as a pet warmer. It has an adjustable thermostat to set the highest temperature it will reach. I have mine set to 25°C/75°F. So, even though it is connected to a temperature controller, the ...
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I don't think that this is going to work very well, stripping out the barrier between the freezer and the refrigerator. Any number of things could happen:
You risk damaging the refrigerant lines that may pass between or go around the freezer portion,
Unless you can disable the freezer, you may find it working extra hard to try and maintain the thermostat ...
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Many people will re-purpose chest freezers as fermentation chambers and they will place their carboys and buckets inside of them. Chest freezers do have their benefits as they are insulated and capable of cooling to any temperature (with the use of a temperature controller) wort would need for fermentation. They are often the home brewer's go-to for ...
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You have to base the choice on what temp you want to ferment at, not necessarily an analytical choice in the optimum range. Different points in that range will create certain flavor profiles, all temps will make beer. The profile you want comes from experience.
You need to remember that the fermentation itself generates heat. I am sure that your temp ...
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And Here is Flex-Watt Heat Tape, as used in herpological applications.
They are all exactly the same stuff, the homebrew products are just cut to fit carboys and pre-assembled. It's just a big resistive element, really.
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The main point of raising the temp is simple. As the sugars become limiting the yeast begin to enter a dormancy phase. As yeast slow down the temp of your fermentation begins to lower too. That lowering temp is also a signal to yeast to go dormant. This causes a cyclical effect of potential having the yeast drop out sooner than you want and you do not ...
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1) Do I raise after 3 days or some other amount? (Rule of thumb here as I'm not going to take gravity readings)
Assuming you aren't taking gravity readings, therefor you aren't examining the apparent attenuation, your best bet is to wait until after high-krausen. This really depends on the gravity of the beer, what yeast your using (ale vs. lager, fast ...
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First of all, once you remove the trub bulb, there is no need to add another one. If you don't add another trub bulb and open the valve, how are you getting your "glub"? The idea is, attach the bulb before you rack in your wort and pitch yeast, transfer the wort and open the valve (that way your hand is on the valve and you can verify that nothing is ...
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A little worried, perhaps, but regardless you should attempt to keep the yeast/beer itself in the yeast's ideal temperature range. If you have a temp controller, then look into getting some sort of "thermowell" to put the temp controller's sensor in the middle of the fermentor itself, but taping (and insulting) the probe against the side of the fermentor ...
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Yes, if you switch your freezer on and off in quick succession the compressor gives up the ghost and you have a box that can actually turn into a semi-oven.
Good news! thermostats like the STC-1000 have a timer (that you can set) that tells it not to power on/off within that period. I have mine set to 10 minutes.
When you buy a temp control device, just ...
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