Brewing in the Summer - Experiment Plans

I've been planning my next brew for the past few weeks, originally thirsting for a a mild ale, but eventually deciding upon an English bitter. Naturally, there are a few risks to brewing either (if not most styles) during summer months. It's just too damn hot and my basement can get as high as 74 degrees F in July. On average, though, my basement is between 70-72 degrees F during the summer, which doesn't sound all that bad until you discover that the fermentation process is exothermic, which is a fancy way of saying the yeast in your homebrew generates its own heat, with some estimates as high as 7-8 degrees F. In other words, my yeast won't be happy at 80 degrees F. That's warmer than my parents pool right now!

One solution is a makeshift swamp cooler. Basically, put your fermenter in a beverage tub, put some cold water in the tub and drape a thin towel or t-shirt over the fermenter after soaking it and let a fan blow its way. As the water evaporates, the air gets cooler. I tried this last year and while it definitely worked, my shirt had mold spores on it after several days which worried me about them transferring somehow to the beer, so I won't be doing that this summer.

I'm not buying a fridge and I don't have a temperature controller, so those solutions are out also. So, the one solution left that I've read about we'll call fermenter immersion. Simply put: use the same beverage tub, and in one order or another, fill the tub up to the point that it reaches the level of beer in your fermenter. Check the temperature. If you're brewing an ale and the temperature of the tub's water is in the low to mid 60s, that's perfect. Check it everyday and try to keep a stable temperature (within 10 degrees of fluctuation I'd assume) for 5 days, then pull it out and let it ferment out for another 9 or 10 days.

There are a few caveats to this method. One, put some sanitizer or cleaner in the tub to keep some of the nasties at bay. Second, when you pull out to warm it up, don't let it warm beyond the yeast's temperature range. I wouldn't worry about exothermic heat, as mentioned above, as much as I would during the first few days of fermentation, but you should put the fermenter back in the cold tub if temperatures get above 70 degrees F, and given how hot it's been lately, I'm likely going to need to.

I'll post pictures and updates on this blog in a few days. Leave your comments below about your own summer brewing methods and madness. Cheers!