swamp-cooling a carboy

Hawaii has two main seasons, winter and summer. They aren't as drastically different as seasons on the mainland, but they're distinct nonetheless: winter is rainier, with more clouds in the sky; and summer is drier, with clearer skies and slightly hotter temperatures. After an unusually long and wet winter here on O'ahu, we're finally moving into summer. And that means that the temperature of the basement where I've been fermenting and storing my beer has moved from "barely cool enough" (72 degrees Fahrenheit) to "really just too hot" (75 degrees) for the English and Irish styles I prefer.

The reason I'm using the basement for fermenting is because it's the absolute coolest part of the house. There's nowhere else on this property that's cooler, so I can't just move my beer somewhere else. That means I've got to find some way of beating the heat.

I've mentioned in past posts that I'm not a real gadget-oriented person--I generally prefer to try to do more with less. I'm also famously cheap. For both of those reasons, I didn't want to go the route of buying a refrigeration unit just to be able to keep brewing--though I know there are plenty of homebrewers in Hawaii who eventually do just that. What I've settled on, instead, is a swamp cooler.

A swamp cooler is, basically, a system set up to lower temperatures through evaporation. You can probably find plenty of info on the scientific principles by doing an internet search, so I'm not gonna bother to go too far into it here. All I really needed to know is that when water (or other liquids, I guess) evaporates, it reduces the temperature in the immediate area. That's why we sweat--it cools us down.

So, to keep my carboys cooler, I've started using a very basic swamp-cooler. I found a basin wide enough to fit a carboy into (my cheapskate nature was pleased to be able to find one on the property, instead of having to buy one), and then I set the carboy inside. Next I wrapped a towel around the carboy, and poured water over the towel. I filled the basin with a reasonable amount of water to continue to supply the towel with moisture--it draws the liquid up through its fibers in another scientific process I'm not gonna bother to explain--and that's it.

The temperature in the basement is currently getting to about 75 degrees Fahrenheit during the heat of the day. But the swamp-cooler keeps the carboy at around 70 degrees. Easy, simple, cheap, and good enough for now. If the temperature rises significantly, I'll have to find some other way of dealing with it. But for now I'm pretty pleased with this solution.