I've lurked here for awhile soaking up info like a sponge. Thank you for the wealth of knowledge on this site. I'll be brewing a vanilla Porter on Friday, Dec. 23rd. I will be using WLP023. The area I keep my carboy (7 gal Fermonster) is a dark cubby closet-esque area in my garage. The area is currently staying at about 50-55 degrees (I keep a thermometer in the area and in the open area of my garage to compare them). I plan on doing a water bath and aquarium heater to keep the temp up to target. Even though the aquarium heaters lowest setting is 68 degrees, I will have it plugged into a controller that i can dictate the set points with. Knowing the fermentation temperature can be greater than ambient, my plan was to start it out at about 64-65, then adjust it as needed and as the fermentation settles down. Does this seem logical? Any other pointers regarding this topic that can be passed on to a greenhorn such as myself would be appreciated. Thank you, J
Your thinking is reasonable. I'd do a test run with water in the fermenter instead of your wort so that you can really dial this in. Just test the temperatures inside and outside of the fermenter every 12 hours or daily. A few things to think about in a 50F garage: Your water bath will be 68F. When your fermentation pushes past this temperature the aquarium pump turns off until you go back under 68F. This is a good thing. The cool garage temperature will help keep your temp in check. You may want to experiment with different volumes of water bath. A full water bath should keep things pretty constant. A little water in the bottom of your tub will allow the fermenters temperature to swing either hotter or colder durning fermentaiton or after. Maybe draining some of that water off when you hit high krausen to keep the temp in check. You'll have to add more after things settle down to help keep the beer warm and finish up.
65F would probably be a good temp to pitch at. The website says 68-73F, but if you made a starter and have a healthy pitch, you should be fine. Let it come up to 68F through fermentation and maybe go as high as 70-72F to finish it off at the very end.
Thank you inchrisin. I did plan to creep the temp up after most of the major fermentation had settled down to help finish it off prior to cold crashing. I had not thought about using levels of the water in the bath to help control things. I will give that some thought.
