Beer Forum

Sometimes I hear something like, "Pitch at 64 degrees and after a couple days allow the temperature to rise a degree or two per day until you get to 80 degrees." Just throwing hypothetical temperatures around. My question is how the F am I supposed to do that without buying a million dollar automatic temp controlled conical? I can rig up some things to heat or cool a fermentor but I wouldn't have tight control over how much of an effect it would have. How do you guys do it?

Put your fermenter in a tub of water with an aquarium heater... close enough for gub'ment work

firmwrap and brewdroid.
Just sayin

I have two fridges in my garage for temp control. I found them both for free on Craigslist. If you check often, you can even get newer models that many people are simply willing to give away because they don't have the space to keep them. Same thing applies to upright freezers, which also work for this application. I outfitted each with a Ranco digital temp controller - those were $90/ea, not $1,000,000.

I would add to Saco's post to tape the probe to the side of the fermenter so you are measuring the temp of the fermenter and not the ambient air. Also cover probe with bubble wrap or other type of insulation.

Some (most that I have seen) upright freezers have condenser coils as shelves - you can't move them, and a carboy won't fit. Look for one with removable shelves, or a chest freezer.

I am too cheap to have a dedicated refrigerator, so I put my fermenter in a 10-gallon orange cooler. It's not too much effort to change the water, or frozen plastic bottles, twice a day, but I use a temp controller and a pond pump in a separate cooler to automatically circulate ice water.

So I could rig this:

http://www.rancoetc.com/ranco-etc111000 ... -p-86.html

Up to this:

http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product. ... d=10251240

And I would be able to pitch at 65 and then after three days ramp up the temp two degrees a day until I reach 80?

Well, a bigger fridge, but you get the point.