A Better Lager Cooling Belt

The sliced tee-shirt cooling belt had one point of failure, no elasticity. By the second round of gel packs, the cotton fiber had stretched so much that the cold packs just were not staying in contact with the fermenter's sides.

Bumped the temp down a whole 2º F below the cellar's ambient, to a cool 52º F.

So, as I sat in the cellar on an orange Home Depot bucket, pondering the situation, I remembered the drugstore hot & cold pack - lower-back healing belt we've had in the medicine cabinet since I pulled something in my back years ago. Both the cold and hot packs' fluid contents have mysteriously seeped out into the environment. The belt's material is a stretchy gauze with velcro at the end to pull it tight. Within two hours of applying this solution, the temperature reading had dropped to 52º F from 54º F. Experience shows that the stable temperature environment of the cellar should hold the temperature drop for several days.

Bubbles are popping through the lager's airlock in an uninterrupted parade, two at a time. I can't wait to taste how this batch comes out, in about 10 weeks. (If nothing else, home brewing beer teaches you patience.)