First off, I am not a homebrewer...yet. I lurk and read this forum to learn until the time comes when I have enough room and money to start brewing. I was reading a few recipes and at the bottom, there were some very specific fermentation instructions, i.e. 64F for 4 days, 68-70F for 2days, 72-74F for 2 days, etc. What do you guys use to ensure your wort stays at that temp during fermentation?
Many of us use chest freezers with a temperature control to maintain temps. For example, I set my controller 62 for my latest IPA. When fermentation heats the beer up to 64 my freezer kicks on and lowers the temp back down to 62. http://www.sears.com/kenmore-elite-...04616582000&kispla=04616582000P&mktRedirect=y http://morebeer.com/products/ranco-digital-temperature-controller-wired.html
Generally speaking ales do well at 60-70F which can be just below room temp and sometimes hard to achieve. A lot of people ferment in their basement. Another option is to put the carboy or bucket into a larger container and fill the outer container with water or frozen water bottles to maintain mid-60's. Remember that during vigorous fermentation the temp of the fermenting wort may be several degrees over ambient (exothermic rxns happening). I used the above solutions with success but eventually switched to a chest freezer + Johnson A419 temperature controller. The temp controller has a thermometer that you feed back into the chest freezer and kicks the freezer on and off until it hits the desired temp. I keep this in my garage and it maintains ale temps even during the hottest of summer. In the winter I switch to heating mode and connect the controller to a heating pad that I have stuck to the inside of the chest freezer. The temp controller kicks the heating pad on and off until the desired temp is achieved. I'm able to keep ale temps even in the coldest chicago winter. Another benefit of this system is that it allows you to cold crash. Just google : Brewing temperature control, cold crashing, fermenting temp control, etc and there are probably a million or so threads that will all give similar advice.Cheers. http://www.beeradvocate.com/communi...mperature-control-system.203332/#post-2716998
It sucks but I wound up getting a chest freezer, which aren't terribly expensive depending on how much money you make. Thing is, I don't use it for fermentation yet, it's keeping my bottled beers, store-bought beers and kegs chilled. I'd have to take all of that out to use it as a fermentation chamber. Whats funny though is when I was reading reviews on the freezer I was thinking about buying, seems like almost everyone was using it for a keezer and not actually freezing goods with it. I also have the Johnson A419 unit, but I'd like a BrewBit. BTW, these things just came into my realm of knowledge. Way better than a stick-on thermometer. More money out the window - ha! Looks like I have to find one that will work with a Johnson probe though.
Sometimes you need to keep the wort cool. Other times you need to keep the wort warm. There are high-tech and somewhat costly solutions and there are low-tech and cheap solutions. The former for cooling involve converted freezers...fridges...controllers...and money. The latter involve swamp coolers...frozen water bottles...DIY insulated chambers...and time. Keeping wort warm enough is often just a matter of moving the fermentor around the house or maybe getting a strap-on electric belt. --- Like any hobby or past-time...you can spend as much or as little as you want.
