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Meadery Temps crashed!

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kudapucat

kudapucat

NewBee
Registered Member
Dec 2, 2010
2,383
10
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Bundoora, Melbourne, Australia
Hi guys.
The temps of mead in my meadery is 18C or 64F
Is this something to be concerned about? until now my musts have all been on a steady 20/24C or 68/75F

Gas activity in the vapour locks is down from yesterday.
When do I start to panic?
 
Depends on the temp range of your yeast. It's best to shoot for the lower end of the range. Cooler will ferment slower but gives a cleaner prodouct.
 
kudapucat said:
Hi guys.
The temps of mead in my meadery is 18C or 64F
Is this something to be concerned about? until now my musts have all been on a steady 20/24C or 68/75F

Gas activity in the vapour locks is down from yesterday.
When do I start to panic?
Click to expand...
like mmclean says, it depends on the yeast so you should look it up, but it shouldn't be a problem at 18C.

I've got 3 buckets of stuff on the go in our outhouse and the temp has been down to -5C, even then they seem to be still moving south if rather slowly. I've brought one in the house and it seems to have finished Ok (checking it later on). Though I'm gonna stick a heater belt on one to see if that makes enough of a difference......

regards

fatbloke
 
Medsen Fey said:
Quick! Start some new batches. You'll get better results at 64F than you will at 75F in most cases.
Click to expand...

Medsen! Don't say that!
I have no more honey left until Dad's next flow. I'll have to buy some. To make it worse, I already have a 23L carboy I bought so I don't have to make gallon batches anymore!!! It's Christmas and you'll send me broke!

Besides, is that really a good idea? We'll be looking at temps in the 40's over the next 2 months. Of course the meadery will be air-condiioned most of the time, but temps could reach 30.
 
OK, so nothing to worry about.
The new meadery I'm digging under the house should be regulated to 18-20?? 64-68?

That being the case, the cellar, where I plan to age my mead should be kept at what ideal temperature?
 
There has been a few treads on this. Most seemed to agree that mead should be stored like wine. I forget the range but I think the idea temp was 54F.
 
Some of my best fermentations have been in the 58-62 F range. They do go more slowly, but the extra few days tacked onto a yearlong project isn't anything to cry over. You could store mead at this temperature just fine as well, to keep you from having to make a second space a few degrees cooler. On the other hand, I haven't tried making anything at 54-56 F, so perhaps that's even better? So I guess I'll put in a vote for 14-16 as your temperature range. Nice spot to be when it's 40 outside too (ouch that's hot).
 
I'm building a cellar for the curing of meat as well as storage of wine. Between this room and the rest of the house will be the meadery, at a warmer temp. Which is convenient for insulation as well as for making mead, and not travelling far to rack it.
I don't know how I'm going to maintain temps, but I'm guessing a couple of split systems and a heap of insulation would do well.
Any ideas?
 
If you're digging down deep enough, you may not need any active heat control. Regardless of the net ambient temperature point in your cellar, the best part of creating a cellar is that the thermal sink capability of the surrounding rock/dirt walls will help to keep the ambient air temperature very stable, regardless of what's happening upstairs.
 
I agree it will keep it stable, that's the idea.
But I wonder about what that temp stable should be... or is it something you can't control with that much thermal mass? Just dig your cellar and deal with the ambient it produces?
 
Can't install something to cool or heat it as necessary? You'd think with that much insulation it shouldn't hurt the power bill too terribly.

I'm jealous!
 
AToE said:
Can't install something to cool or heat it as necessary? You'd think with that much insulation it shouldn't hurt the power bill too terribly.

I'm jealous!
Click to expand...

That's precicely what I'm asking AToE...
Termal mass will cause regulation of temp, to the temperature of the ground. Will heating or cooling as necessary be a waste of time and or money?

the thermal mass of the earth is not insulation.
Cellars are cold because they can have the heat drawn away by the earth.
Insulated tanks buried in the ground, tend to warm up and stay warm, from the pumped water, rather than cooling the water down.

So if I pump heat in, the earth will probably suck it out... right? Any thoughts ppl?


Edit: Your jealousy is accepted, but perhaps misplaced, until I actually build the damn thing. As the project is 12 months old already
 
kudapucat said:
That's precicely what I'm asking AToE...
Termal mass will cause regulation of temp, to the temperature of the ground. Will heating or cooling as necessary be a waste of time and or money?
Click to expand...

I do know something about this issue, not just from meadmaking and cellaring. You are correct - the thermal mass of the rock walls in your cellar will provide a near constant temperature at the wall's surface year round, and convective transfer of heat either into or out of the air in the room will occur unless you provide enough insulation on those walls to stop that transfer.

But the transfer of heat and maintenance of temperature at near that cellar wall value is exactly the point behind the digging of a cellar to begin with. In most temperate places on the planet, you can expect an ambient temperature from a cellar at a one to three meter depth to be on the order of 52 to 64F (roughly 11 to 18C). It can be hotter in some locations (equatorial regions, or near active geothermal vents), but generally not much cooler. Unless you're either dumping a lot of heat into the room, or taking a lot out (using active heating or refrigeration), the room air will be close to the cellar wall temp.

The thermal resistance of bare rock is somewhat high, but not as high as good grades of residential or commercial building insulation. And if there's any subsurface water as part of that environment the thermal resistance goes down quite a bit. So, if you want to employ active heating and/or cooling to get a room's temperature to a specific target temperature (and if we assume for argument's sake that your target temperature is different from the passive equilibrium temp that you'd get from your bare-wall cellar), you're better off building a room and insulating it with a nice high R-value insulation scheme, because actively warming or cooling a bare wall cellar room will not be as efficient as warming or cooling a well insulated manufactured room.

The good news is that fermentation in such an environment is quite possible - and is perhaps better than fermentation in surface ambient air conditions. While a little on the low side, the heat that fermentation naturally produces will likely keep a cellar-based fermenter in almost ideal conditions for many yeast strains. And of course that kind of cellar environment is virtually perfect for long term aging and storage of your meads or wines. ;D
 
Thanks Wayne.
Rock's a bit ambitious, but the walls will be clay. Hard black clay. I've hit and removed the big volcanic rock layer, and I've hit the water course... so no deeper as it already floods when it rains
The interconnecting walls (not dirt) I had planned on being insulated, then directly on the other side of this wall, I was going to put my meadery, and insulate it's exposed walls.
That way the cellar should be cold, and the meadery too, but perhaps a timy bit warmer.
So you have to walk through the meadery to get to the cellar.
Anyway that's my layout. DW's had some input, and now it looks like I'll have to walk thought the Billiards room to get to the meadery! I'm not sure she realises how much room that's going to take up!
 
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