I have posted about this a couple times but thought it deserved
it's own thread. I have feremented about 10 or so batches now
with no problems. Take a clean 48 quart cooler and place your
MB fermenter in it and add sanitized water to the beer level in
your fermenter. I keep the temps at a very constant level by
adding a tea glass or two of ice cubes once or twice a day
depending on the temp. It's a breeze to keep the cooler water
between 68-71 degrees and the cooler water controls the wort
temp. Plus it's a good peace of mind knowing your beer is at
the correct temps. Sure a converted freezer would be ideal but
not all of us have room or the extra cash to purchase one not
to mention the wife's approval. I got the idea from another
forum where they use the taller coolers which seem to be more
popular these days and what they do is remove the hinges from
the lid and cut a hole in the top so that the airlock on top
of those glass carboys protrudes through the lid. That or they
use a 1" thick foam insulation sheet with a hole cut in it to
replace the removed lid. In the winter, instead of ice we could
convert it over with an aquarium heater. I guess if your house
is really warm, a frozen 12 oz water bottle inside would do the
trick.

I have been using a pack of one step but on this batch I put 3
capfuls of star san. Dont fear the foam, right?

Nice man, I'm doing THIS for now on. I have the a/c running in the house usually around 70...but those temps can still creep up especially when I like to keep most of my batches around 66-68.

This seems it will be way more convienant and consistant compared to the ice packs, which works but is dealing more with ambient air temp. The mass of the water and low fluccuation is what makes this work so well. This should be a nice upgrade since it's still going to be a while before I get my hands on a brew fridge. Two thumbs up Hatchet Jack.

You keep your house at 70F just so your beer is in the temp range for the yeast? Doesn't that get expensive not to mention cold? What does your wife (and kids?) think about this? I'm not sure my central air is capable enough to keep the house at 70F on a hot day, say 85 or 90F, and it it was the electric bills would be gianormous!

If it works for you, great. Maybe you were just referring to spring days where the AC runs infrequently?

I do like this, just need to get my hands on a cooler. Could be a great way to keep those initial fermentation burst temps down.

Well, I keep my central air at around 70...but it's for my own comfort, not at all for fermentation purposes...lol. It's perfectly comfortable in here at that temp. Actually my 3 year old is sitting with me right now wearing nothing but a shirt and his spiderman undies. I work in an industrial laundry that is hot all the time, with steam, huge washers and dryers...running a boiler...when I come home I want to be comfortable.

I live in a 3 bedroom ranch that is about 1200 sq. feet with a furnace and a/c unit that is probably from the 70's. Both work incredibly well. I've been on a budget from my Gas/Electric provider fro the past year paying $98 a month even over the winter...the past two months I haven't even had a bill because of all the credits I've built up. So no mami, it doesn't cost me a fortune, it actually doesn't cost me a cent to stay comfortable.

I've been freezing bottles full of water and switching them out twice a day. Keeps my beer at 68 without an issue, but I may try this when it gets balls hot in another month.

I think the fermenter, in water, inside a cooler makes sense in so many ways. It possibly does a better job maintaining the beers temperature than a controlled fridge. In a fridge the air can only carry away heat at a limited rate so the beer runs several degrees warmer than the air temp. Floating in water the thermal transfer is much better so the beer is held closer to temperature. The only gotcha is checking on it a couple times a day to adjust the water temp.

One thing I did was mark the inside of the cooler with a sharpie
after I removed the fermenter so I can easily fill to the correct
level on the next batch. Also after you add ice a few times, the
fermenter may try to float a little so take out some water occasionally. One more thing, after about 2 weeks in there you
may notice a spot of mold here or there on the fermenter if you
left a little spilled wort on top. Spraying it down with a little
one step once a week or so will prevent that.

Swamp coolers are hot!

You might be able to reduce the amount of ice cubes needed and the frequency of adding more by making block ice.

I fill re-cycled 1-QT plastic food containers from Chinese take-out about 3/4 full of water and put'em in the freezer. Half-gallon plastic milk / juice / tea jugs would also work well if they have screw-tops.

In my cooler, I've been using 24 oz pop bottles that are frozen. This time around it's taken 1 at night and I put 2 in during the day. It stays between 65 and 68 in the cooler.

In the next couple weeks I'm going to build a bigger version so I can use my 5 gallon and 6.5 gallon buckets. I have some 4' by 8' sheets of 3/4 inch insulation. I'm thinking 1 1/2 inches of insulation inside a wooden box should work as well as a cooler. I'll need a box 18 inches deep, by 20 inches wide, by 30 inches tall, inside demensions, to hold a bucket and at least 2 2 liter pop bottles of ice. $6 at Menards will buy an indoor/outdoor thermometer where I can stick a probe in the box, and read the temps without opening the door.

I was just getting ready to go out an buy the materials to build a Son of Fermentation Chiller when I drove past a 15 cubic foot freezer for $50. Talked them down to $35 then ordered the analog temp controller from morebeer. all in all cost almost the same as building my own and now I can set and forget.

Make sure you post some pictures after you get the new freezer up and running.

I've got it running not much to look at. Looks like a chest freezer, no mods to it, just plug and play with the controller. I guess I'll put some pics up just to get my post count up. let me go find the camera. My brewery (spare bedroom) is a mess.

These two batches I have going now were brewed two days ago. This
morning the cooler water was at about 70 so I put 2 glasses of
Ice in each before I left for work. Tonight when I checked, they
were at 68. I added one glass of ice to each just to play it safe.
Probably the yeast heat has hit it's high point already.
It looked like high krausen this morning.

Do you swap-out the swamp water with each new batch?

Once I just refreshed with another pack of one step and fermented
another batch with no problems but I say don't risk it. And if
you do a fruit batch and it spews, I would change out the water
anyway. Normally there is a strong co2 smell upon opening the
cooler which is good but you sure don't want the water to spoil
or start getting nasty. I feel sure the cooler water would sour
without the sanitizer added.

Yeah dont do what i did the first time I did this....lol that is open the cooler and shove your face in it and take a deep breath...That hurts when you inhale pure CO2...lol

Temps hit >100 everyday here and it doesn't get very cool in the house. I am definatly going to do this. Thanks for sharing, what a simple, cost free solution.

Great find!!

When you get it up and running, test your temps. Mine had a several degree temp swing. It would go 2-3 degrees high before kicking on and wouldn't shut off until it was 2-3 degrees below my setting. That was a possible 4-6 degree swing and not what I wanted for fermentation. I moved that analog controller to the keezer I was building and bought a digital for the fermenter.

Yeah there is a bit of a temp swing. I am currently lagering in it, and I have a very accurate digital thermometer in there and it show temps from 32-44 while my controller is set at 36. However my thermometer is reading air temp in the freezer, and I have the sensing bulb taped with insulating tape to the side of my carboy. So... I guess that the temp swing inside my carboy isn't as great as what my thermometer is showing. I have already thought about switching to the digital controller. I guess they were right, you don't save money by buying the cheap stuff first. You eventually come back to order the stuff you really want and then you are out the money that you spent in the first place.

Starting to get really warm down here so I've moved on to 12oz
frozen water bottles. Put one in each cooler this morning and
all 4, yeah 4 are resting happy at 68-69 this afternoon. It's
been in the high 90's all week with humidity about the same.
Take yer breath away.

While at Lowes yesterday shopping for mash tun parts, I found
some corks that will fit the MB valves. Might give someone a
little more peace of mind about submerging the fermenters in
water who might be on the fence about it. The corks were in the
specialty fastner area "Blue Drawers"


The old original style valves have a passthrough from the top but
the updated locking spigots seal completely.

I picked up a 110 volt a/c window unit on sale for $79. at the local home and garden center, it's very energy efficient and I keep it running 24x7 in my fermentation room (aka spare bedroom).

I keep the temperature set to 70F. and have had no problems maintaining a constant temperature in the room. The rest of the house's temperature varies from 73-78F during the warmer months, but the fermentation room stays constant.

The idea of dumping ice on the poor little yeasties gives me the chills, plus the a/c unit makes my fermentation room really comfortable to sit in.

The Screwy Brewer

I like the corks HatchetMan, you are just full of ideas lately...nice!

The difference with your setup ScrewyBrewer is those are ambient temps...your fermenting beer may be as high as 75+ in a room that is at 70. With the process mentioned above, you can achieve lower more stable temps directed to the fermening beer. Even if you add ice, the mass of the water will equal out...it's a great concept and exactly what I'm doing on my batches for now on.

Of course I would love to just have a brew fridge, but that's comming in time!

Thanks KNeace, you know even with a brew fridge you could have
the issue of new fermenting kegs needing lower temps and then
some that are just conditioning out that you might want to
keep about 70 or so. With the coolers I can control them all
individualy but it also has the clutter factor. I hope you try
it though. Before I was always checking the temps and looking
at them ect.. now I keep a plastic grocery bag with 4 ice
bottles and just change them out twice a day. I have 4 going
now and it takes about 2 minutes out of my day.

Screwey Brewer, I like the fact that you challange us on our
opinions and do things your own way without regard to what
we are doing. Keep it up, we need someone to call us out
occasionally.

the cooler + water in the cooler + beer in the keg is a pretty big thermal mass... it would take a lot more than a handful of ice cubes or a few bottles of frozen water to lower the temps significantly. doesn't mean you need to be inattentive, but it would take a lot to get it out of control.

temp control, in my opinion, is one of the most important factors of homebrewing. a method that works, whether it's a cooler of ice water (which is a GENIUS idea, swamp cooler, or fermentation fridge, etc.) is essential.

Anyone wants to try this you might want to consider using the
exact same 48 qt coolers. I have 4 different models and all 4
keep temps at their own pace. I have one thick one and it only
needs 1 12 oz frozen bottle every other day. I cant make it
climb over 70. The other 3 are thinner with less insulation
and are closer to the same needing 1 bottle twice a day. I
have two frozen water bottles on the beer I brewed yesterday
because they should start making heat today. I know this sounds
complicated but I only check on them once or twice daily and
they just sit there happy below 70 with no worries during the
day about what's going on with them. Oh yeah, be careful dropping
the bottles in there that you don't bump the valve. I have not
done it but would be easy to do. And do not get water over the
beer level or the fermenters will try to float and roll to one
side. Sometimes I forget to check on them towards the end of
fermentation for a day or so but they have just hardly crept
above 70. The first 3-4 days are more critical of course.

I use the 48qt cooler as well from Hatchet Jacks picture, its Red, got it from Walmart for around 16 bucks, I change out a 12 oz frozen water bottle when i wake up and around 8 pm at night. It gets hot during day here in GA, and my coolers are in a room where there are no air condition vents.

That being said, I havent changed one of the tanks since my ginger beer is done fermenting and Im about to bottle in a few days, trying to let the temps rise. 2 days without adding new ice and its sitting just as 71 degrees (yesterday it was 69.5). So its raising slowly as the yeast are waking back up cleaning up stuff (at least this is what I heard Jamil saying).

Anywho. changing out frozen water bottles I can keep the temps at pretty much 64-65F throughout the day. I have 3 coolers set up. Each with 2.5 gallons of water in them (perfect, about an inch below beer level) and a half an ounce of star san in each cooler, and its stays perfectly sanitized.

Finally someone else crazy enough to try this and welcome. What
part of Georgia are you?

I'm going to be doing this on my next couple batches, I keep saying that but I need to clean out my spare room first so I can organize all my beer stuff and make room for a cooler to do this. Right now my Mr.Beer kegs are staying cool sitting right over my HVAC register on the floor with a box over the top. The keg of my Fat Tire version 2 has been stitting at 64-66* so far. Another day or two and I can let things rise a few degrees as the krausen falls. It works great.

Haha I like the method so far will post pics of the setup tomorrow. I'm currently in Athens GA. Need to get around to filling out that profile info.

I'm on the other side of Hotlanta in Bremen. Dawg Fan?

Dawg fan indeed, I'm going to UGA now, I should be writing my doctoral dissertation, instead this summer I found beer making as a hobby.

My setup. 3 coolers , and I just started June 15th.

Sweeeeeet set up! Good way to keep beer cool in Georgia. Do you have one step or anything in the water?

2.5 gallons of water in each cooler with .5 oz of starsan mixed in. Its just regular tap water for these as i have been dumping them after 2 fermentations. On the bottom left in the first pic there is a 5 gallon container of distilled water and starsan that Ive been using since I started. and in the drawers are my bottle capper, some ph test strips i got for free (to test the star san in the coolers), my caps, and others. Also. check this out! my closet with 2 file cabinets (stays around 72-74F) to bottle condition beers in. Each drawer(4 total) one holds about 4.5 gallons worth of beer. Total cost for these was around 18 bucks from our habitat for humanity store. Only the bottom one is filled with beer, the rest are empty bottles waiting to be filled.

lol... a "beer file"... now i've seen it all lol

HAHAHA do you put labels on them? and file them under B for Beer?

I like the file cabinets and need a better way to keep my empties
They are spilling around all over the house and garage.
I had a brain storm while Jon was talking about building his
fermentation chamber. I thought about all the old school
furniture entertainment TV cabinets showing up at the thrift
stores. I wonder if you could insulate the large Tv area or even
put a couple coolers in there and use the lower drawers for
carbing or storing bottles. Plus it would look like furniture
and not clutter up a room. Or put it in front of a window unit
ac. I know a dedicated fridge would be ideal but maybe not due
to space or wife issues.

Haha, I should. Today I finally got around to getting post-its so SWMBO(thats right...right?) can tell when beers are done conditioning to have a brew. Ive just been keeping the dates in my phone and my beer log (an excel file on my computer)

Also, that furniture idea sounds great. I just wish I had a spare room to fill with this stuff. Ive also learned that craigslist is great, getting 4 growlers for $2 a piece and 4 1 liter swingtops for $1 each this saturday.

Big Bertha...


The Fermoire


Granted, off topic, as those ain't cheap. But pretty cool stuff!!!

Those might not be cheap, but I bet we all have furniture that can be repurposed for brewing. There should be a contest of some sort.

lol, thats what I did. I took over an older armoir that we only used for spare blankets and stuff. The top portion holds my kegs and carbonating bottles and the drawers hold all the goodies/supplies. But that is slowly changing back to an armoir since we are planning for our 2nd child that is due in Jan, so all the beer stuff is heading to the garage. I just don't know what I'll do with my bottles for carbing. I still need some sort of temp control...haven't gotten that far yet.

Congrats Kneace, been there done that. Two so changes everything.
We waited until our daughter was about 6 before the second one
came along and things were almost back to a liveable normal and
wham back to changing diapers for 3 years and being homebound.
Prepare yourself

KNeace, Jan? You must have just recently found out. Congrats!

Liz are you up early or just still on friday night? I'm finishing
coffee about to head to work.

Yup, that's my thoughts exactly...here we go for round 2. We found out on Mother's Day...what a gift.
But being through it once so far, we know how fast it goes by. They are talking, walking and pooping by themselvs before you know it.

not that this is necessarily "on the cheap", but here's another DIY low rent method for cooling... think about the possibilities... just sub any large-ish container in the fridge for the carboy, and you've got yourself a cheap "heat sink" to keep the water bath around your fermenting vessel nice and cool... or use, warm water in the winter to keep things warm

http://www.thebrewingnetwork.com/Beer-Gadgets/Pond-Pump-Cooler

Cool, I was thinking I could probably just swap over to hot water
bottles in the winter although I may have to find smaller bottles
than 12 oz because my hot water is like 135 degrees so thats a
bigger difference than 30 degrees to 70. Guess I will figure it
out in January.

How cold/warm does it get in your house? you might just be able to fill them with lukewarm/slightly hot tap water and just not put bottles in there. Its 90 degrees here in GA (you know this ) and if i dont put water bottles in the cooler it easily rises to 72 degrees inside the cooler.

In the winter, it might be worth it to experiment a couple of days with cool water in an empty cooler vs warm tap water in an empty cooler to see how it just rests there.

I'm thinking this might work halfway decent in the winter for doing true Lagers. I'm thinking use your cooler as you do now with the water and the keg. Keeping it outside, maybe in a garage or inclosed porch or something. Use warm water bottles to keep the temps closer to lager fermentation temps like 45, or even an aquarium heater to heat that water...but the jist of the cold comming natural from mother nature. Or maybe a heating pad hooked up to a temp controller. Instead of trying to cool things down to lager temps, you would only be trying to warm things up slightly.

It would be an easy "free" way to do lagers over the winter to have ready to drink during the summer. Over the summer, brew and drink your lighter ales and brew heavier ales for the fall/winter. This is starting to make tons of sense...:)

I've thought of something just like this too, except I would hook the pump up to a temp controller just to help dial things in where you want.

Thats a good idea if you live in an area with constant cold temps
Down here it may be 12 degrees one day and 65 two days later in the winter.

I have a good hvac system and the temps in the house fluctuate
between 65 in the winter to 78 in the summer so I'm only cooling/
warming a few degrees. I could keep the whole house at a steady
temp year round but the power bill you know.

Haha that's exactly what our temps are. Good 75 dollars during the summer. Around 50 during the winter.

i fermented in the basement this past winter... i just used an empty cooler (no water bath) with 64oz juice bottles filled with the hottest water i could get out of the tap. i finally got the process set in stone by the end of the winter. first it was small water bottles filled with hot water... they cooled too quickly to keep the beer warm. then a heating pad... it had an automatic shutoff, and i wasn't waking up every two hours to go reset it. i found the 64oz bottles perfect to be big enough to stabilize their own thermal mass, as well as the thermal mass of the beer. change out bottles twice a day. keep the cooler lid closed. worked like a charm

Is the insulating wrap enough to prevent condensation?

Its only been there 3 days so far and I'm only cooling it about 10
degrees or less from ambient to keep it at 68 degrees The tub is resting on a thick
folded towel and wrapped in that old comforter/ sleeping bag.
It should soak up any condensation.

Awww, look! The fermentor's all tucked in.

Nice job, HatchetJack.

Yep, she's tucked in for tonight too with two frozen bottles
and resting at a comfortable 67*
Funny the airlock never bubbled at least when I was looking which
was not much. It's probably fine, I pitched a whole pack of US 05
I noted lots of brewers claim no airlock activity in the buckets.
Maybe the co2 escapes around the gasket? The level was tilted
in the airlock indicating pressure last week.

Got a keg in a dry swamp shared with 3 16oz bottles filled frozen water.

I have a temp strip on my keg, however the top 25% of the strip is above the beer line.

The temperature on the strip says 58 deg. This can't be right. Could the strip, because some of it is above the beer line, be giving an inaccurate reading?

It probably is a little inaccurate, could be getting some air
temp. On the other hand 3 frozen bottles is a lot. I normally
just get by with one 16 oz frozen water bottle changed twice
daily except for the first 2-4 days when it's making heat from
the yeast. Are you using a 48 qt cooler for the swamp? I just
use a thermomoter and check the swamp water. The beer will take
on that temperature. I quit using the strips one I went to the
wet swamp.

There's room enough only for the keg and some 16oz bottles on the diagonal. Not sure if that's a 48qt, sounds like it might be smaller.

Since I've discovered the temperature so low yesterday, I went down to one bottle. This morning, the temp still read around 58 after using only one bottle all night. Hopefully today when I get home from work the temp would have risen some.

The good part through all this is that I'm using US-05 yeast, and there is still activity going on based on bubble forming and popping on the surface in the keg.

That is one of the nice things about this system is the temps
are slow to warm up even if left unattended for a day or 2.
I would fill a bottle of warm water and see if you could get up
above 65*. Do you have some sanitizer in the swamp water?

If you've got activity going on with the yeast, just let it slowly warm up.

I just used this for the first time, could not be any simpler to keep your beer at a constant temp!

alright... bumping this thread.

i vote this thread should be made a sticky... maybe in this section, or maybe in the equip forum. either way...

think about it... hatchetjack's method is genius in it's simplicity and efficiency. everyone chimed in with another "cheap" method, from the 'son of a fermentation chamber' link, to using a window AC unit. lots of good info. in the 7 pages of posts. sticky won't get it relegated and puched back as new posts are made.

Agreed, it's a great sytem. Better than a cooler and ice packs with ambient temps, that works great too and some prefere it or have it down to a science, the water addition just makes the icing on the cake.

I can now also add my cheap option

http://www.mrbeerfans.com/ubbthreads/ubb...4598#Post184598

I don't know about a sticky but we need to show Jacks' first picture when someone asks about controlling the fermentation temp. The picture says it all.

Rather than mess with water, I think I've got another idea which won't cost more than, say, $40 bucks. Get the cooler describe in the OP, and order four mini-keg ice blankets at about $5 each from Midwest Supplies.

http://www.midwestsupplies.com/5-liter-keglove-ice-blanket.html

I just ordered one of these to go inside my Pig Pen, which is an insulted sleve for my new Party Pig.

Seems to me that one of these ice blankets under the Mr Beer fermenter and one dropped over the top would do nicely. Leave the other two in the freezer- swap twice daily.

Whoa, no way. I just moved from Carrollton, and I spent a lot of time in Bremen. Small (internet) world.

A couple weeks ago, I was at Target and they were selling these large rubber "tub" type containers with handles for $6. I have been using this to control my temps on my fermenting bucket. There is no lid or anything, but I have it filled with water equal to the fill line on my fermenter, and twice a day, I swap out about 4 frozen 1 pint water bottles.

I wasn't sure how well it has been working, so I came home on my lunch break today to check on it. Holding steady at 57 degrees, over 5 hours after I left it! Mind you, this is in Louisiana and my house NEVER gets below 70. Needless to say, I was pretty excited that this has worked so well.

Douglas, with my rope tub bucket swamp coolers I normally put 2ea 16 oz
frozen bottles in twice daily during the first 3-5 days depending
on how quick the yeast works and then let it ride for a couple
weeks. Usually by then I have brewed more so I pull the buckets
out and set them on a towel for another week until I keg or bottle.
I dont know how it does it but the water stays 5+ degrees cooler
than the house at all times. Like a swimming pool sorta I guess.
It's actually difficult to move the temps in the swamp as it tends
to stay about 63* winter and 68* summer.
It also more closely duplicates how commercial breweries control
their fermenting temps with the coolant moving through the inner
liner of those big stainless tanks.
I also keep my rope tubs wrapped with blankets/ sleeping bags
for insulation.

thats alot of work.. and would like to point out its not working, you are working it... quite well actually but lots of work anyway... my insulated cooler(with a lid yes) will maintain 50's for days without all that work or potential mess... i know yours is cheaper but i have other uses for my cooler so that helps with the cost

Coolers are more ideal yes but one that will hold a 6.5 gallon
bucket fermenters would be pretty expensive if you could find
one. Some folks cut a big hole or fashion a new lid out of foam
so that an ordinary size cooler would work. Some folks even
use a bathtub.

oops, didnt catch that bucket part of it... back to the dictionary for me! yea finding a cooler to fit a bucket... not happening

It's not really lots of work. In the morning before I leave for work, I replace bring an armful of ice bottles and put the melted ones back in the freezer. At night when I get home, I do it again. Takes less than a minute each time, and cools a 6.5 gallon fermenting bucket in the Louisiana heat. In fact, it almost works TOO well, as my fermentation temps might be lower than they need to be. I'll probably try using only 2 or 3 bottles next time to see if I can keep temps in the low 60's.

I also have the $20 swamp cooler from Target, and use it for my Mr. Beer fermenter. Works like a charm, and is even easier than the bucket cooler. I was just surprised at how well the bucket works, considering that it isn't insulated or anything.

I just started using a swamp cooler. The one i had on hand was smaller than a 48 qt (not sure what size exactly maybe 32 qt). I had a bit of difficulty keeping temps with ice cubes. Then I hit on using the Mr Beer qt PET bottles. Fill with water and freeze. I use one at a time and i have been able to keep 52 consistantly. And this is in a Very Warm apartment (i have no heat control).

Thanks for posting this HJ.

BeerHead must be still reading the dictionary, have not seen him
around lately?

Glad it's working out for you Schrodinger Cat, I still ferment
99% of my batches in a swamp.

If you want to be able to use your Mr. Beer bottles for beer you can use something like soda or juice bottles.

I feel your pain! It gets up over 80° In here sometimes!

Love those NYC apts. control the temp in my apt the same way i did it in my college dorm....opening and closing the window.

This has worked perfectly for me. I went the 2 frozen water bottle route, and it has maintained 65° all day!

** Update **
I swapped the frozen bottles last night, and the water temp dropped to 60. The temp has remained at 61 ever since (16 hours and counting), and the water bottles are fully melted.

Doing it manually you really have to keep an eye on fermentation. When it's rock'n you may have to replace the frozen bottles twice a day. Then all of a sudden the bulk of fermentation is done and you've got to change your routine to keep from over cooling it.

I noticed that. I can pretty much keep it between 61-68 with one frozen bottle switched out every 12 hours now. If I go to two bottles, I dip down into the high 50's.

I scored a wine cooler on craigslist today, so this batch will be the first and last in the ice bath!