mead | Terrapin Bluffs Meadery

Fermentation Temperature Control Options

With the coming of spring (and hotter days), fermentation temperature control is once again an important issue. As I mentioned previously in the Analyzing Mead Recipes post, whatever yeast you choose for your fermentation likely has an ideal temperature range. Some yeasts are better than others operating outside their temperature range, but in general, it is best to find the right temperature and stick there. At our household, winter provides an ideal temperature setting for fermentation, as we keep the house in the mid 60s. This is right in the middle of many mead yeasts ranges. Unfortunately in summer our house often climbs into the 80s, well above the temperature range of most yeast types. This requires creative action to manage your temperatures and maximize their flavor contributions. Here are a few common ways to accomplish this.

The Fermentation Fridge

Using a temperature controller with a refrigeration unit to keep mead cool.

If you are a member of the American Homebrewers Association (AHA), or frequent their website, you might have seen a recent article on a fastastic homebrew setup for controlling temperatures. Most may not be able to afford a setup this elaborate, but this is a good example of how refrigeration can be used to control temperatures. In an ideal world, at TBM we would be using a similar setup to control our fermentation temperatures. The only way to truly replicate a recipe is to control the temperature, and fermentation chambers are your best bet on a small scale (jacketed tanks with glycol coolers also work, but are a significant increase in setup cost and complexity).

To build a fermentation chamber, start with a simple chest freezer. When purchasing one, ensure that there is adequate space inside to handle the number of actively fermenting musts or worts that you will have at any given time. You will also need a temperature controller to maintain a constant temperature of the chamber. Chest freezers are meant to keep their contents below freezing, but meadmakers are going to want their temperatures between 50 and 75 depending on the yeast.

Many temperature controllers exist. Your more basic controllers only take the measurement of the chamber and ensure that the temperature stays lower than your threshold. More advanced controllers might include two temperature inputs, usually the temperature of the chamber and the temperature of the must or wort. Lastly, the most advanced controllers include a measurement of the ambient air outside your temperature chamber in addition to the temperature of the must and chamber. This provides the best control of the must temperature, as it can predict fluctuations in the external environment to predict the heat transfer of the system. As you can imagine, these controllers get more expensive as their capability increases. Choose the best setup for you starting out. You can always upgrade in the future if need be.

At a later date I will provide details of the buildout of a fermentation chamber for TBM, but I haven’t sprung for the supplies yet. But that doesn’t mean I can’t keep a must cool enough to keep yeast happy. The next two options are great for those on a budget who aren’t yet ready to spring for a fermentation chamber.

The Carboy in Ice Bucket Technique

Cooling a fermenting must with ice may be hands on, but it provides a great buffer against hot temperatures.

One way to keep a fermentation cold is to place your carboy or fermenting bucket into a larger container that has cold water inside of it. Playing around with the additions of ice, you can control both how hot and cold your must can get depending on your house temperature. I find it best to use ice packs or frozen water bottles rather than ice directly. With straight ice additions, you may overflow your bucket with too many additions.

Start with a wider bucket or tray than your fermenter with an interior dimension at least six inches high, strong enough to withstand the weight of your full fermenter, and waterproof. The larger your tray, the better. The amount of cold water inside acts as a heat sink, absorbing the temperature rise from an active fermentation and providing a barrier to the warmer ambient temperature. Five gallon fermenters can easily weigh 60 pounds when you include the weight of the carboy/bucket and its ingredients, so strength of the system is key. You don’t want to go through all this effort only to have it break (and spilling everywhere) during your fermentation.

Place your fermenter inside the tray. Fill the tray as high as you are comfortable, enough to provide adequate contact area with the bottom of the fermenter. Be sure to leave some room for ice pack additions. If you know the ambient temperature is above your ideal fermentation range, go ahead and add an ice pack to the tray. After 30 minutes, come back to measure the temperature of both the tray water and your must. If the temperature is still too high, add another ice pack. If it is in a good spot, or slightly lower, let it be. Check back a few times each day and add new ice packs when the temperature is too high, or remove old ones that are no longer cold. Over time you will get a feel for what is needed to keep your system in a good temperature range.

The Wet Rag Technique

Draping a wet towel over an actively fermenting carboy and blowing air across it may help prevent overheating of your yeast.

The simplest, and possibly cheapest, solution to keep your fermentation cool is to drape a damp rag (or towel, or old t-shirt) around your fermenter and place a fan blowing in its direction. Tie the rag around the top of the fermenter to ensure it stays in place. Also try to blanket the entire fermenter, and not just a small portion of it, for the best results.

The evaporation of the damp rag will cool down your must, just like evaporating sweat helps cool you down. When you first start out doing this, make sure to check on it frequently to ensure the rag stays damp and that you don’t have the fan turned on higher than necessary (hey, there’s no reason to waste electricity if you don’t have to). You may have to swap the rag a few times a day to maintain a good temperature.

Well there you have it. Three options for maintaining an appropriate fermentation temperature, the fermentation fridge, the fermenter in ice bucket, and the wet rag technique. Do you have any other ideas for controlling your fermentation temperature? Let us know in the comments section below. Thanks for reading!

Well, it is official, spring is finally here. And that means it is time to start gardening again. If you are an avid gardener, use winter to prep your beds, plan the garden and order your seeds. I procrastinate too much for that, so I’m just now putting together my plans for this year. Although by the calendar spring really comes in March, unless you have a greenhouse in Maryland, many of your herbs and vegetables have to wait until later to plant (darn you pesky late freezes!). And in planning the garden this year, I am focusing on things I can use to enhance my meads.

I haven’t talked about it much, but you can’t make great meads without high quality ingredients. And what better way to ensure the quality of your ingredients than to grow them yourself? This includes keeping your own bees instead of purchasing honey, but at this point that is out of the question for me. If you don’t already have a good honey source, go check out the honey locator to find an apiary near you!

Gardening is one of my most satisfying summer hobbies, and not just for growing mead ingredients. It helps cut down on produce expenses, and ensures the quality of the food I eat. If you haven’t tried a homegrown heirloom tomato, for instance, you are truly missing out. Vine ripe tomatoes at your local grocery store don’t come close. The same is true for other vegetables, fresh cut herbs, and fruits that you can grow. Grocery stores and large scale farmers have chosen fruits and vegetables based on their appearance and ability to stay “fresh” over long periods of time on the shelf. They haven’t chosen them for taste. You have two choices to overcome this: grow your own, or find a trustworthy farmer and buy from them (at the local farmer’s market, perhaps). This year in our garden I am making a point of planting ingredients I can use for mead making. Here’s some of the ideas I have for what to harvest and plant.

Collecting flower petals

In the early spring, rather than pulling all those dandelion “weeds” at first sight, I am letting them flower and collecting the petals to make dandelion wine. If you do this, make sure your lawn doesn’t have pesticides applied. I don’t want to get blamed for someone reading this and getting sick!

I’d like to say I will also collect our rose petals to make a rhodomel, but I don’t think my wife will let me. She purchased a purple rose bush this year, and I’d love to see what colors I could get out of it. Maybe in a few years, when the plant is mature enough, I can steal a few blooms when she isn’t looking.

Herbs

Perhaps the easiest plants to grow in a home garden, herbs provide fantastic flavors to enhance your meads. Many of the standard mead herbs may not be easily grown at home depending on your climate (cloves, vanilla, allspice, cinnamon, etc), but there are many that apply to wide ranges of climate zones. This year, I am looking at planting some chamomile, lemon balm, and mint varieties. We already have a few lavender plants I can harvest from as well. You can also look into growing hops, exotic basil varieties, or coriander (the seeds come from cilantro for those TexMex fans out there), but alas our gardening space is limited.

Fruits

In our So, What is Mead? post I talked about the common mead types, and melomels jump to the top of the list in popularity. I am extremely interested in growing fruits native to Maryland, and the United States as a whole. Cider and grape wines are predominately made from Old World fruits, and I would like to test the range of available flavors native to our climate. Nothing says eating local like eating something that would have grown in your backyard centuries ago.

Last fall, as one of our wedding presents, we received a slew of native fruits from a friend. Purchased from Earth Sangha, these plants were grown from wild seeds collected in the Mid Atlantic region around Washington, DC, and included persimmon, lowbush blueberry, huckleberry, and both red and black chokeberry. I don’t expect to harvest these for many years to come (persimmons can take 10+ years to flower when grown from seed), but am extremely excited about the possibilities.

The previous owner of our house also planted thornless blackberry, highbush blueberry, and hardy kiwi. We only had a few blackberries mature last year, but the blueberries may produce fruit this season. The hardy kiwi is still a few years away from really producing, as they aren’t properly trellised. (Note, hardy kiwi is not native to North America. However, given the plant is already in our backyard, I can’t see a reason to tear it out.) We have also planted rhubarb, which although not native, it does taste delicious in pies and mead!

Lastly, we have some wild raspberries, a mature mulberry tree, some pawpaws, and a few black cherry trees growing adjacent to our property that we can harvest. Needless to say, there will be a lot of fruit gathering this season, and hopefully more than we can eat. I only get the leftovers for making mead.

Vegetables

Aside from the fruits and spices, the one vegetable we will be growing for mead making are spicy peppers, likely just jalapenos. Don’t be shy on the spice, many commercial meaderies include habaneros and Thai chilies. Capsicumels may not be everyone’s favorite, but are worth a try if you enjoy spicy foods. You may need to make a recipe that finishes sweet to balance with the spice, and look to add the peppers in secondary to avoid the pepper oils interrupting the yeast.

Are you growing any other ingredients to use in your meads? Let us know in the comments section, as I am sure I’ve missed a few easily grown options.

Terrapin Bluffs Meadery

Tag Archives: mead

Fermentation Temperature Control

Spring Is Here! Time to Think About Planting.