Keeping your fermenter cool

[Craigerrr]

I've kept a bucket of it in my garage for months without issue, so I'm guessing long enough.

Is the bucket left open, without a lid? I keep my starsan mixture in 4 liter jugs, and for sure it lasts indefinitely.

If anything, the evaporation should make the solution more concentrated. I don't see any reason to worry about effective pH unless you're mixing with very alkaline water.

Interesting, I would have thought that the pH would just balance out over time if left in an open top container. I have nothing to base this on, just a conclusion I was jumping to.

 

[Hawkbox]

It has a lid when I remember it but quite often no lid. It gets kind of off after a couple months so I just dump it and get new stuff. but that's more from all the crap I rinse in it.

 

[BOB357]

Is the bucket left open, without a lid? I keep my starsan mixture in 4 liter jugs, and for sure it lasts indefinitely.

Interesting, I would have thought that the pH would just balance out over time if left in an open top container. I have nothing to base this on, just a conclusion I was jumping to.

We're talking the relatively short time period of a fermentation and the increased evaporation rate of a swamp cooler setup. I'm sure the evaporation rate would, by far, outweigh any pH degradation of the solution due to time.

 

[J A]

Not a bad idea at all and not all that expensive to mix up! I wonder how long the acidity will keep if it is open to the air?

You'd mostly want to discourage bacterial growth and over the fermentation period, it shouldn't deteriorate that much. When I've done it with carboys in a couple of different set-ups, I've used a chlorine solution but you have to be a little more careful about any possible contamination. More recently I started using Steramine tablets from the restaurant supply. Those are pretty cheap and effective for this sort of thing and are a handy thing to have around the brewery, anyway.

 

[Craigerrr]

We're talking the relatively short time period of a fermentation and the increased evaporation rate of a swamp cooler setup. I'm sure the evaporation rate would, by far, outweigh any pH degradation of the solution due to time.

Makes sense to me now