Temperature of Water bath for fermentation?

[Lord0]

Hi,

When fermenting I place my fermentation vessel in a "builders bucket" filled up with water and heated with an aquarium heater. I use a thermometer to monitor the temp of the water in the bath. A pretty standard set-up.

Question: should I keep the temperature in the water lower, higher or the same as the recommended fermentation temperature?

I think lower because: the fermentation process itself its exo-thermic therefore I don't want it over heating
I think higher because: I'm not sure how well the heat will get from the water bath into the FV.
I think "the same" because: I'm not sure :)

I've had a few IPAish type brews that have almost ended up tasting like Saisons and I suspect this was something to do with fermentation temps.

Thanks

 

[Fil]

Perhaps measuring the temp of the beer would be a better. As for the direction of any input to change the temp that will be seasonal to a degree and also dependent on the ambient conditions.

 

[Drunkula]

Same temperature. The thing if it was a single fluid system it would mean the heat would diffuse quickly but here you'll have hysteresis (posh for delay) between the two. The heat of fermentation would sink into the bucket water and as long as the ambient temperature was low enough it wouldn't overshoot.

Measuring it would also be nice. Basically everything Fil said.