'Brew Box' idea for temperature control

Sky King

I've been on this forum lurking for a while now as I mulled (pardon pun) the idea of home brewing over in my head but since as of today I am the proud owner of a homebrew kit I might as well come out from behind the bushes.:)

So hi everyone. Nice place ye have here - friendly help and all that jazz.

Anyway I am looking forward to getting started on my kit. I am new to this but i understand the principles behind it. The only issue I have is that my house is almost always at 17 - 18C and even when the heating is on (like now) it get s up tp about 20 but the insulation is shockin so it's back down in an hour or so.

I have an idea for a regulated temperature environment for brewing. But before i put it together i would like to ask you guys

1) is it a good idea or totally hairbrained??
2) what is the optimum temperature to set it at (coopers say 21-27C but that seems like a wide tolerance to me - there has to be an optimum.

Another advantage of this would be it would allow me to brew out in the shed - and I am tight for space in the house so that would be really great if it was a runner.

The Box
I have access to insulated panels where I work and thermostats. i was going to knock together a simple insulated box with a control panel and 60W light bulb.

Basically all you do is enter your setpoint on the stat and required temperature differential and the bulb will come on and off as required, keeping the box at the determined temp.

i have resolution to the nearest 0.1C but that seems a bit daft for home brewing - a 2 degree differential is probably acceptable.

Here's a poxy drawing showing what I mean:



I had the idea of going up to D.I.D. or whatever and getting an old fridge off them (they take returns when people buy new ones) to use as an insulated box instead but to be honest this is just handier for me.

BeerNut

17-18 is ideal brewing temperature. Anything above 24 is not a good idea. (Ignore kit instructions is Brewing Rule No. 1)

But yeah, that should work fine, and if it doesn't you haven't spent anything on it.

Standard practice would be a fridge and an ATC-800 temperature controller. That way you can do proper lagers.

covey09

AFAIK in the brewing vessel, when the yeast is active will create its own heat from the frementaion process which will keep the whole wort at around 18C until all the fermenatles are consumed. I would just rattle off a brew and see for yourself, its all about the beer and few dregrees here and there is not going to make or break a desent brew.Again this is only my noob opinion

Sky King

BeerNut wrote: »

17-18 is ideal brewing temperature..

Cheers lads I'll just hop one out of it and see how it goes.

I might return to brewbox idea later for shed brewing action! My stat is fairly similar to the one in your link Beernut.

wet-paint

Funny, I was going to tell you to get on to this friend of mine, and then I took a look at your username...


Anyway, would the lamp be enough to heat the entire fermenter? It's at the top, and it's a tall bucket. Better to put it below the bucket?

oblivious

Sky King wrote: »

I have an idea for a regulated temperature environment for brewing. But before i put it together i would like to ask you guys

Son of a Fermentation has been knocking around for a while, plans included

stevenmu

One other thing to consider, I know light isn't particularly good for beer, I'm not sure about electric bulb light but would be worth checking out or keeping in mind.

leggit

stevenmu wrote: »

One other thing to consider, I know light isn't particularly good for beer, I'm not sure about electric bulb light but would be worth checking out or keeping in mind.

Think it's fine as long as it's not direct sunlight or a flourescent bulb.

Sky King

leggit wrote: »

stevenmu wrote: »

One other thing to consider, I know light isn't particularly good for beer, I'm not sure about electric bulb light but would be worth checking out or keeping in mind.

Think it's fine as long as it's not direct sunlight or a flourescent bulb.

Yes I had considered that... Meant to look it up actually. Well I have her bubbling away now anway, so we shall see.

And WP I reckon since its only maintaing a comfortable ambient air temp as opposed to actually warming the wort... It should be ok on top.

But if this 18 degree brew works out ok then I wont bother with it at all.

rubadub

Heating under the fermenter would be more efficient. If you put the bulb in a strong biscuit tin you will have no light problems.

Instead of a thermostat you can use a plug timer, just start off low and work your way up. e.g. I have a 50W heat mat, it is 15mins on 30mins off all day long to maintain 20C. Obviously you have to change this with the weather.

Or get an aquarium heater.

Shiny

I thought this way of temperature control was pretty cool and simple.

Combined with one of these and old christmas lights would give you fairly simple temperature control. You could then wrap them around the fermenter in the same way as a brew belt.

Sky King

rubadub wrote: »

Heating under the fermenter would be more efficient. If you put the bulb in a strong biscuit tin you will have no light problems..

It probably would be more efficient alright but my thoughts on that approach is that if you are heating directly under the fermenter, then the temperature probe would need to be in the wort, so that it could control the power to the heat source (i.e. the lightbulb) based on wort temperature.

My idea was to have the atmosphere maintained at a steady temp and put the temperature probe into a 'dummy' jar of liquid beside the fermenter which would sort of mimic the thermal inertia of a large fermenter full of beer!

Having the probe just hanging in mid air in the box would mean the heat control would be short cycling - unnecessarily.

stevenmu

One more idea, if your insulation is good you could possibly end up with your wort getting hotter than you would like. I've only done 1 brew, but it stayed around 18ish degrees for a week in a closet which was only 15/16ish with only an old sleeping bag loosely wrapped around it. From what I've read, for most beers you won't want it going much over 20.

wet-paint

I have mine at 24? Right in the middle of the Cooper's recommended 21-27 range. Too high?

stevenmu

wet-paint wrote: »

I have mine at 24? Right in the middle of the Cooper's recommended 21-27 range. Too high?

From what I've read here, and at Beoir.org, the ideal temperature for ale type beers is around 18-20, but it varies by beer and yeast type. Much higher and the yeasts will produce off-flavours. Again, just going by what I've read on forums, beer kit instructions aren't to be trusted. Coopers for e.g. is created for Australia, so it specifies the kind of temps that their houses would typically be at, the make the instructions as easy to follow as possible, they don't want to include cooling to 18 degrees in their instructions because it would make them seem much harder to follow. I'd guess 24 would be fine, but not ideal.

But again, that's just based on what I've read here and on Beoir, not my own experience so don't take my word for it

Sky King

That makes sense...

Mine is hovering around 18-20 and seems to be doing OK

wet-paint

Cool, I'll plug out the belt for a while so and see how it goes.

n97 mini

For an ale 18 is really the lowest. Any lower and the yeast starts to noticeably slow down. 22 is probably about the highest.

For a light ale you should probably do a diacetyl rest which means turn up the temp to 22 for the last day or so after fermenting for ~5 days at 18.

Regards a box: a fridge with a lightbulb in it is probably the most cost effective way to do the job. Both connected to a temperature controller of course. The ATC-800+ (+ is important) has become a no-brainer, but there are smaller cheaper temp controllers that do the exactly the same thing... and why spend more money that you have to!

leggit

I always try to keep mine around 18-20 degrees and they're usually fine. You just don't want high temperatures or drastic changes in temperature. Low temperatures are ok if kept constant, fermentation just takes longer in my experience

Sky King

The slower fermentations give better results is what I have been reading too, [/noob opinion].

Is blonde beer considered an ale btw? Or lager?

BeerNut

Lagers and ales can both be blonde.

Pretty much every kit comes with an ale yeast, even the ones that claim to be lager. I believe the Coopers European Pilsner comes with a lager yeast, but that's the only one I know of.

mayto

BeerNut wrote: »

Lagers and ales can both be blonde.

Pretty much every kit comes with an ale yeast, even the ones that claim to be lager. I believe the Coopers European Pilsner comes with a lager yeast, but that's the only one I know of.

The European Lager also comes with a lager yeast according to info on the coopers.com forum by thirsty matt, posted below. Some kits come with a blend of ale and lager yeast, supposedly.

HI ALL,
JUST SO WE DONT ASK THE SAME QUESTION OVER N OVER......HERE IS THE COOPERS YEASTS STRAINS FOR EACH HOMEBREW KIT,SO YOU CAN WORK OUT WHAT YOU CAN N CANT MIX WHEN IT COMES TOO YEASTS!!
So to extend the inital listing to include yeast sachet codes if they were packaged today being the 268th day of 2007:

Original Series:- Ac (26807)

International Series:-
Australian Pale Ale - Ac+L (26807 Int)
Mexican Cerveza - Ac+L (26807 Int)
European Lager - L (26807 P)
Canadian Blonde - Ac (26807)
English Bitter - Ac (26807)

Brewmaster Selection:-
Wheat - A (26807 W)
IPA - Ac (26807 IPA)
Irish Stout - A (26807 IS)
Pilsener - L (26807 P)

Premium Selection:- Ac+L (26807 PS)

Note: Ac = Coopers ale yeast, A = ale yeast and L = lager yeast

oblivious

mayto just be aware there are a few dry lager yeast on the market that are not great, for some kits a pack of Nottingham or US-05 maybe be a better choice than the lager yeast provided Saflager W-34/70 and the 149 strain are supposed to be great though

mayto

oblivious wrote: »

mayto just be aware there are a few dry lager yeast on the market that are not great, for some kits a pack of Nottingham or US-05 maybe be a better choice than the lager yeast provided Saflager W-34/70 and the 149 strain are supposed to be great though

Its been a long time since i made a kit beer , just remember seeing info on the yeast supplied with coopers kits. I made a pilsner with brewferm lager yeast last year and it turned out pretty good. I will use saflager w-34/70 next time I get around to making a lager to see what thats like.