Overheated ferment

[ericmark]

I have thought about the cool box, to swap from cooling to heating you change polarity. The STC-1000 only has single pole relays, could use external relays, but not sure heating from above will work that well anyway. I would love to see it work, sooner or latter my fridge/freezer will fail and using a Peltier solid state unit seems a great way. Just �£10.19 for one of these

but the base unit

is flat and most fermentors are round. The idea is really something worth thinking about. But is the plastic of a fermentor a good enough conductor? Would you need to used a metal fermentor? At £3.95 for a 60W unit they are cheap enough, but it is the how would you use the unit.

 

[Grizzly299]

My wit using Mangrove Jacks M21 hit around 26°c and tasted fine at bottling. I brewed and pitched day we had 31°C outside!

 

[sjacksonuk]

Unfortunately not at the moment. I need to move house, and get space for a brew fridge.

I feel your pain!

 

[sjacksonuk]

Just a quick update. I bottled my beer and a quick taste during bottling seemed good. Im looking forward to tasting it in a week or so. Hopefully the brew was not affected by the hot weather. The experience has made me look into controlling the temp while fermenting. I dont have the room for a fridge/freezer solution in a permanent spot so I am thinking of testing a peltier system cooling/heating a coolbox or fermenting chamber so i can set a temp and leave it while the yeast does its stuff. I have seen a youtube showing a peltier being used to cool a chamber down to 5c. Being able to control fermentation temp would be very useful.

I'm in a similar situation in regards to not having the space for a fermentation fridge and was struggling to control the temperature for the secondary fermentation when using a keg. So I decided to make my own STC 1000 fermentation box and bottle my beer instead.

As you can see from the image below, I bought a large garden storage box which can fit 40 500 liter bottles. I've then bought a 40W tubular heater which I fixed to a wooden frame at the bottom of the box. I then cut out a think plywood base to sit just above the heater. I drilled small holes into the plywood so that the heat could rise. I then place my bottles inside it, place the temperature senser into a bottle of water at room temperature and pop the lid on and let the secondary fermentation commence.



I know it's not the perfect solution but it does the trick for me. Having read your idea I think I could adapt the fermentation bin and add a peltier system to allow for the perfect condition temperature.

https://youtu.be/H2cITqIvwmI

Has anyone given this a go already?

 

[ericmark]

I looked at power used by my freezer over 12 hours with a new brew and a unit like this

as shown here for £9 should work built into the lid of a fermentor. It will need a 6A supply likely the units sold for LED lamps would work which adds another £15 so around £24 for the parts plus the temperature controller which I have not included as it would also be required with a fridge. You would likely need to insulate the fermentor and this would also add to cost. Also it would use more power than a fridge as the Peltier system is rather wasteful. So price wise it is not really worth all the effort to build specially as you will have the noise of the fans. It would be slightly more compact, but the fermentor is not really that much smaller than the fridge.

I have a unit which fits on a cool box as a lid, the box came with standard lid and Peltier lid so you can use as a standard cool box or powered cool box, with a cig lighter lead for use in the car, I used to carry honey ice cream from Tywyn in Gwynedd to Mold in Flintshire, and I found it was better with the standard lid than with the powered lid. OK looking at start temperature of -18°C but it really was useless. Ice cream was expensive, but really good not sure if really worth a 160 mile round trip though. My sister lived in Tywyn at the time so it was a fringe benefit.

But given my experience with the Peltier system I would be unwilling to spend out £25 to try and make a fermentor cooler. Also my fermentor has a screw cap lid so it would also need a new fermentor as well with a large lid.

 

[Bar-Steward]

I have tasted a couple of bottles of my Old Suffolk which was fermenting during the hottest day of the year in July, and it is improving very nicely - in fact I am impressed enough to have decided to make another batch of this later this year, so I think all is well.

 

[huwb]

So tried my brewferm framboise today, earlier in the posts i was worried about the fermentation temp. After 13 days in the bottle it is crystal clear carbonation level is very good. Taste wise i think it needs more time but is promising, no weird or off flavours that i detect. Promises to be very drinkable i think.

 

[IainM]

Well, I've just chilled and cracked open one of the Mosaic SMaTH beers, and it has improved quite a bit. They may be hope for it yet!

 

[oddjob5]

I tried my coopers stout last night. It tasted fine to me. There is not much head to it and not much gas escapes when i open the bottle even though i think i might have over primed it by using 200g of sugar for the 22l batch. It has been stored in the shed. All very drinkable though. It must have been the yeast that could cope with the high temps and not produce off flavors.

 

[dad_of_jon]

I tried my coopers stout last night. It tasted fine to me. There is not much head to it and not much gas escapes when i open the bottle even though i think i might have over primed it by using 200g of sugar for the 22l batch. It has been stored in the shed. All very drinkable though. It must have been the yeast that could cope with the high temps and not produce off flavors.

I use about 160g max for 22liters and that's for wheat beers, if you chill the beer well before opening that helps but if you still have no head do a high pour :grin:

 

[geigercntr]

... I have one of these

http://www.thehomebrewforum.co.uk/showthread.php?t=58966

You can now buy them at Get er Brewed for about ��£50. They deffo work as I have a stout in mine a a steady 18C...

Picked up one of those bags. Currently got a pale ale at a chilled temp... Fingers crossed!

 

[Bar-Steward]

I have tasted a couple of bottles of my Old Suffolk which was fermenting during the hottest day of the year in July, and it is improving very nicely - in fact I am impressed enough to have decided to make another batch of this later this year, so I think all is well.

I have had a few more this afternoon, which is now 5 weeks after bottling and there seems to be a slight difference between individual bottle tastes. I wonder if this is due to my inconsistency of cleanliness, although all the bottles had the same treatment?

I did bottle direct from the fv, so maybe the level at which the beer was taken make a difference and the last ones might have a bit of stirred up sediment in them?

As a relative newcomer to all this, I am liable to be making many mistakes.