Temperature control for beer kits

[norrie]

Ok so I've been making home brew kits for a long time however I've been unhappy with some of the off flavours I've had recently and I think it's due to temperature control in the summer. Far too hot during the day for instance. Anyway one of our big upright freezers has packed in so I've decided to use that as a homebrew vessel. I've stripped most of the cooling pipes out as it wasn't working anyway. I've left two shelves in for the buckets to sit on, fitted a heater and have connected an Inkbird temperature controller to control the temperature. The question I've got is what is the ideal temperature for brewing these homebrew kits at. I've set it at 19.5°c with a 1°c lower temp so it will start to heat at 18.5 and shut off at 19.5. Does that sound about right? I always leave the kit for at least two if not three weeks to ensure fermentation is complete.
I then transfer to a Corny keg crash cool it in my beer fridge and connect it to my beer tap.
Any advice on what else I can do to improve these kits is always helpful.
Thanks.
Norrie.

 

[RichardM]

19.5 sounds about right, but how are you going to address it getting too warm in the summer?

 

[Rodcx500z]

As above, the whole idea of of temp control using an inkbird is a working fridge with an heater in, fridge plugs into inkbird heater plugs into inkbird so you have control of the temp summer or winter

 

[Rodcx500z]

Like this

 

[MashBag]

Thank chaps, I read that and first thought I was going to be the bearer of the bad news.

The obvious method needs the freezer to be a working fridge.... Or do you have a cunning plan for another external cooling device? There is more than 1 way to skin a cat.

 

[Graz]

As a kit only brewer I do believe proper temperature control has made my beer a lot more consistent over the years, I very rarely get one with any odd flavours now and invariably that is probably due to the kit rather than anything else. Tend to find the premium, all malt, type kits tend to make much better beer than anything that is malt + sugar.

I now have two brew fridges though annoyingly one of them seems to have stopped cooling, need to look into that though not so much of a problem this time of year as they are both in an unheated garage so shouldn't need cooling now.

I tend to ferment all my "ale" type kits at around 20 °C. I've never brewed proper lager but that needs cooler temperatures. Some yeasts, Saisons and Kvieks spring to mind, like it hotter.

 

[GhostShip]

There's no question that temperature control has made a huge difference to the quality of my beer over the past few years. I only do kits and was getting the dreaded twang and various off-flavours, so decided to bite the bullet and do something about it. Got a fridge off ebay locally for £12 and bought a tube heater and Inkbird controller from Amazon. Total spend was only a bit more than a premium kit and it's more than paid for itself. I normally set the temp at 20ºC, with 1ºC either way. I still avoid July/August but it's an absolute game-changer in terms of beer quality.

 

[norrie]

Ok thanks guys. To be honest I live in Scotland so I don't think heat will be a problem as it rarely goes above 20 degrees here. Also it's in a garage which is pretty.cool admit then in an old freezer which is pretty well insulated. I used to just leave my homebrew on the landing which has a radiator that is always on in the winter but it was the high temps in the summer with the sun coming in through the window which was causing the problem. I'm hoping to now get a more consistent temp control now. I will of course report back.
Norrie.

 

[The Baron]

As long as the garage does not go above your set temp it will be ok or you may just not be able to brew say Lagers in its hottest months but it should work for the majority of the year.
I use my garage as I do not have temp control and it works fine. I have just started brewing lagers at this time of the year as the temp is perfect @ 15c ish.
No beating full temp control but what you have suggested should be fine

 

[allotment_fox]

Has many above have said using a ferm fridge was the way forwards for my fermenting also learning not to splash the fermented beer around when bottling / kegging once it's in the fermenter keeping the lid closed as much as possible has helped oxygen and beer are a big NO NO.
In my early days (1970's) boots kits being very impatient it was lid on lid off test the brew chuck it back in the bucket then bottle with an open lid using a jug and funnel splashing it about. you live and learn !