Hi everyone.
Today is hot hot hot!
Great if you like the Sun. But if you are fermenting beer, wine, cider, lager or a sugar wash for your still, The hot weather can be a real pain to your yeast.
Most yeast like to ferment between 18 - 22°C, But they will tolerate a few degrees either side of this. However when you get to 25° C and above, the yeast start to go into a hibernation stage and if you don’t do something about the temperature, your yeast can die.
So, apart from putting your whole fermenting vessel in a fridge, how do you go about cooling it down?
Well, The answer is simple. We look back to how they used to make things cool before fridges. And a very simple way is to put your fermenting vessel (bucket/Demi-John) into a shallow bowl, wrap your demijohn/bucket in a towel and then add cold water.
As the cold water evaporates due to the heat, a magical effect happens. The inside of the cloth gets cooler and so this helps cool your fermenting vessel.
You may need to top up your bowl with more cold water depending on how long you need to keep your fermenting vessel cool.
Place your fermenting vessel in your bowl with your moist towel around it in a corner on the floor in your coolest room.
Use a Liquid-crystal thermometer stuck to the outside of your fermenting vessel so that you can take a sneak peek at the temperature and make sure it’s not dropping too cool.
If you need to make it even cooler, then aim a fan at it. the extra movement of air will help evaporate the water faster and increase the cooling effect.
Happy brewing.
