Home Brew Beer / Lager

[UKJASE]

does anyone know a good, economical way, of keeping the temperature low in a brewing vessel, in a hot country similar to thailand, when brewing lager / beer?

i have heard of people using wet towels around the vessel, and blowing fans onto the towels, but this has not been ideal as the towels dry out quickly, and need constant monitoring

i suppose ice could be added to the water around the vessel, but again this would require a lot of monitoring

A/C is an option, but expensive

i would experiment with a empty vessel and a thermometer until i could get the temp down to about 20 degrees C, but at the minute i dont fancy my chances

[soundman]

Nothing to do with Bkk. Moved to DIY forum.

[PattayaParent]

I thought this was a DIY housing forum, not a DIY brewing forum?

And isn't home brew illegal in Thailand?

"i would experiment with a empty vessel and a thermometer until i could get the temp down to about 20 degrees C, but at the minute i dont fancy my chances"

But when the beer is brewing it will give off heat making the vessel warmer so you would need to increase the cooling to maintain the 20C. The only result your experiment might give you is how much cooling power needs to be applied to reduce the temperature by 1C so you can calculate how much cooling you need to reduce it by xC.

Edit: in Saudi I didn't worry about keeping the home brew cool as the warmer it is the faster the brewing process is so the sooner you can drink the beer.

Edited November 8, 2011 by PattayaParent

[UKJASE]

yea but i have heard that high temperatures will kill off the yeast...... did you not find this was a problem in saudi? what was the temp in the room where you were brewing you think??

[mallyrd]

yea but i have heard that high temperatures will kill off the yeast...... did you not find this was a problem in saudi? what was the temp in the room where you were brewing you think??

Like PattayaParent I to have brewed in SA. Temperature was the least of our worries. Beer or wine dump the ingredients into a small plastic dustbin, let the yeast do its work and then syphon off into a five gallon carboy for the final stage of fermentation and complete with an airlock attached to the screw top, place in a darkened room and eagerly await the time when you can sypon off into grape juice bottles. Happy days.

[IMA_FARANG]

yea but i have heard that high temperatures will kill off the yeast...... did you not find this was a problem in saudi? what was the temp in the room where you were brewing you think??

No, it will not kill off the Yeast...the higher temperature will make the fermentation run faster.

However, we did have a room...we took a spare bedroom with an air-conditioner in it...that we did or brewing in. We ran the air-conditioner while the brewing was going on. The temperature was usually around 70 degrees fahrenheit...same as we kept it in our bedrooms to sleep at night.

But be warned...making BEER as oppossed to making WINE is very difficult. Beer can be ruined by a few stray bacteria that enter into your mash....and then you've got a lot of sour vinegar and not beer.

A decent wine is much easier to get than a decent brew of beer.

Basically, with beer, EVERYTHING must be supper-clean, sterilised, and air-tight before you start fermentation.

And with wine or especially beer you must use a water bubble-thru vapor trap...so NO air can enter into the brewing vesell from outside.

That's really important.

Edited November 8, 2011 by IMA_FARANG

[cdnvic]

And isn't home brew illegal in Thailand?

I believe you are correct.