fermenting in the heat wave without a fridge

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bomberns127

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was given a fridge for brewing but it turned out to be dead, so just built myself a box made out of 30mm insulation board, its foiled inside and out the top and bottom are doubled to 60mm, my fermenter is sat inside with a brew on the go, the temp in my kitchen is 29c, inside the box is 19.8c, the thing thats keeping my brew at this temp? a 1.75 litre coke bottle filled with water and frozen overnight and put in the box at 6-30 this morning, get home at 2-45 this afternoon to this, aint life grand when a plan comes together!
i have the pics but have never posted a pic on the forum, will look later and see how its done, might not get a fridge now, got a brew belt for the winter and now for the summer a frozen bottle of water to help with fermentation :thumb: i know its probably been talked about loads of times on this forum, but im chuffed it works!
 
Though never particularly hot where i live, i like your idea. I'm a big fan of simple solutions to potential problems
 
the box minus the lid, very simple and cost me not 1 farthing, asked at my local insulation suppliers and was given a 8 x 4 sheet, i think it will cost a few brews in the end lol

20170704_200124.jpg


20170706_151054.jpg
 
Loving the use of the Celebrations tub for the STC-1000. Why did I spend £10 on a project box for mine!
 
to fix together i used 100mm aluminium foil tape, i am a lagger by trade, techie title is thermal insulation engineer! the tape is a laggers staple piece of kit, use it by the box, off on a tangent but i also have a custom waterproof lagged jacket with velcro fixings for my mash tun, have been thinking of maybe advertising these to see the interest on the forum?
 
bomberns127 said:
to fix together i used 100mm aluminium foil tape, i am a lagger by trade, techie title is thermal insulation engineer! the tape is a laggers staple piece of kit, use it by the box, off on a tangent but i also have a custom waterproof lagged jacket with velcro fixings for my mash tun, have been thinking of maybe advertising these to see the interest on the forum?
Click to expand...

Ah ok, nice one cheers. This sort of thing?

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Everbuild-EVB2ALUM100-100-Aluminium-Tape-x/dp/B005GO3JXA/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1499355305&sr=8-1&keywords=aluminium+heat+tape+100mm

And I'd stick the lagged jacket idea up on the for sale bit for the forum and gauge the interest if I were you, sounds interesting.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
bomberns127 said:
i also have a custom waterproof lagged jacket with velcro fixings for my mash tun, have been thinking of maybe advertising these to see the interest on the forum?
Click to expand...

Sorry to rain on your parade but sponsors are the only members allowed to advertise here, if members were to PM you and it was not discussed on the forums we would be non the wiser :wink:

.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
thought i would post an update, did the same thing today, kitchen around 29c, brew down to 19.1c with a 1.75 litre coke bottle frozen,checked it later today and the box seems that good at holding in the cold the ferment slowed right down!, had to take the bottle out, agitate it, get the temp to around 21c for an hour and woo hoo! back on track now, will try a frozen 1 litre bottle tomorrow, hopefully that should keep it between 20c-21c fingers crossed.
 
Now you have me scratching my head trying to work out how you controlled the head absorbed by a frozen coke bottle with a STC-1000? At the moment I have a working brew freezer, however it is faulty and at some point it will fail, I have a chest freezer at the moment used as a normal freezer, but ear marked to be used as a brew cooler once I return home. However using the frozen bottle would allow me to continue using it as a freezer.

Seen the idea of using a frozen bottle many times, but problem is how to control? I did consider the car AC method, where they power the AC full on, then also use the heater to control temperature, seems wasteful but works with cars.

So a frozen bottle continually cooling then a small heater to heat if required, but really don't want to use a heater and a cooling bottle what we want is some way to control how much heat it absorbs. The only way I can think of is a computer main chip cooling fan.
 
the stc 1000 is only to give me a reading on fv temp, it doesnt control anything, the boxed is a completely sealed insulation box, the frozen bottle is to lower the temp to within 20-22 c for fermenting within the box, at the mo because its a new part of my brewing kit i am adjusting the size of frozen water bottle to keep the temp within the range needed.
so far it seems that 1 standard freezer block seems to be doing the trick so far today, the board is sealed with an aluminium foil tape which helps create a tight seal on the joints, if 1 freezer block can help regulate fermenting temps over a 12 hour period, then thats a cheap way to brew through the summer

the box can be used through the winter as well with a brewbelt which will be controlled directly by the stc-1000 it will cut down on the time the belt is on because the box is completely sealed when the lid and bottom are on
 
I started using an old fridge/freezer at first not plugged in, I expected to only need heating and was going to use it as an insulated box, however I found the start of each brew would cause the temperature to exceed the setting as soon as garage reached 12 degrees, I had thought I would be OK up to 18 degrees when aiming for 19 degrees. I was in fact doing better in my kitchen than in the garage with old fridge/freezer, fortunately for me the freezer still works. Once that first 3 days is over, I can brew in fridge compartment, it is those first 3 days which are the problem, the fermenting produces too much heat, the brew needs cooling and the amount of cooling was higher than I expected.

Since I know my fridge/freezer is on its way out, looking for other methods, there is enough room in the fridge to have some frozen bottles, so I would like to try some frozen bottles in an insulated box with a small CPU fan, loads of spare freezer room to freeze bottles so seems a good idea, however at the moment not living at home, so only an idea, I visit home once a week, so can't monitor what is going on, so fingers crossed freezer will keep going until I am living at home again.
 

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