Cheap fermentation control for the winter

[Andy Q]

Hi All,

Last few years I've been using an aquarium heater and a water bath to counterbalance the Irish winter(October until May:-))
However I've recently changed back to a tapped fermenter as I found the autosyphom was transferring to much crap to the keg, as well as adding the risk of oxidising the beer.

However with the new fermenter being very snug to the bigger bucket, and me not being overly enamoured with submerging a tap in stagnant water, was about to pull the trigger on a brewbelt and an stc-1000 when I saw this

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=exOew-40ge4

Is there anything obvious I'm missing, or is this really as good a quick/cheap fix as it looks?

Regards

[pob]

Principles look ok, practically with out preparation you might run into a few problems.

How do you prevent cross contamination between wort/beer and water in bottle (esp in vigorous ferment) with its open top?

How do you make sure outer surface of 2L PET bottle is spotless? It'll probably have scratches from just being on a shelf in the shop. The outside isn't designed to be used in contact with food, i.e. It's a protective shell, take impacts, hold pressure, etc - the inside would be smoother.

[TheSumOfAllBeers]

Am I missing something here? What is this bucket solving?

Am I correct in assuming that you immerse your FV in a larger vessel that contains a water bath?

IME a temp controller and a brew belt is sufficient to maintain a reasonable minimum temperature e.g. 6 C above ambient. Insulation will help a lot.

[Leann ull]

I put a carboy in a bucket of water put probe in between bucket and carboy and controlled with stc.
It was alright but never as good as a fridge and I think there were dead spots even though water is a good conductor of heat, worth a try though
Use a builders bucket or similar.

The idea isn't great as the pet bottle exterior will be full of nasties and places for bugs to hide in the lid and side walls. In addition plastic is a good insulator so there will be a big lag between actual and bottle. A glass bottle would be better.
An stc and heat belt is still cheapest way to control fermentation temp in a cold room.


Suspend the auto siphon with the commercial clips available or use an elastic band to get it to a level just above the trub and nothing will get into the keg.

With c02 so cheap no oxidation with a big flush of co2 into fermenter and keg before transfer