It's frickin' freezing in here, Mr. Bigglesworth

Maybe cal ale yeast wasn't appropriate.

Even if it were 65, I doubt Cal Ale yeast would be appropriate in the boil.

Come on now, it's been a little colder than 65 this last week (more like 60)

Wow- I wish it was that warm here! I heard it is supposed to get up to 0 tomorrow.

wow i thought it was cold here, averaging around 35oF

Wow, I didn't know that thermometers went below 40°F

I bet your wort chilled quickly!

mysteryberto said:

I bet your wort chilled quickly!

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That is definitely an advantage. If you can keep the hose from freezing, using your IC chiller outside and you've got a wicked fast chill!

Zymurgrafi said:

That is definitely an advantage. If you can keep the hose from freezing, using your IC chiller outside and you've got a wicked fast chill!

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I did a brew sub-0 the other day. Not fun!

You get insane boiloff, but cooling it is nice. I just ran a hose from the sink out the window, left the pot outside in the cold wind.

mysteryberto said:

I bet your wort chilled quickly!

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Last Saturday I was able to bring 12 gallons of boiling brown ale wort down to 70 degrees with tap water through an IC in 15 minutes. :rockin:

On another note, we got 5 inches of snow last night and 8-14 on the way for Thursday night into Friday. After last winter's 100+ inches, I'm still a little weary of snow.

Call me crazy, but I miss the freezing cold and snow. The San Diego weather is boring to me 72 and sunny year round gets old....fast. I'm heading back to western MA on saturday for two weeks and cant wait to go play in the frozen white stuff :rockin:

Displaced MassHole said:

Call me crazy

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I'll do one better, your fu#%$** crazy!

Kilgore_Trout said:

You get insane boiloff...

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OH!

duh. That's why I lost so much so fast the last brew. Knew there was a reason.

Displaced MassHole said:

Call me crazy, but I miss the freezing cold and snow. The San Diego weather is boring to me 72 and sunny year round gets old....fast. I'm heading back to western MA on saturday for two weeks and cant wait to go play in the frozen white stuff :rockin:

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Will be snow on the ground when you get in. We're supposed to get a foot on Friday

Kilgore_Trout said:

You get insane boiloff, but cooling it is nice.

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Yeah, once it got going it was almost impossible to see what was going on in the pot. I used a hair dryer to blow the steam away to check on the boil. Definitely was the fastest my chiller has ever worked, 3.5 gal 210-70 in under 8 minutes.

natefitz:
What was your starting volume? I brewed a batch outside when the temp was around 20-25F. I never achieved a boil with starting volume of 6 gallons. After a couple hours and a max temp of 200 degree F, I figured that was the boiling point at somebody's elevation. So I dumped in the bittering hops and started the timer for a 60 minute "boil." Haven't tried the beer yet. Should be ready in a week or so. This batch also featured a stuck sparge, hot-side aeration, broken racking cane, forgotten 5.2 and poor mash efficiency. One thing's for certain, if it's good...I'll never be able to duplicate it.

I'm rambling...back to the point...how did you reach and maintain a boil at that ambient temp??

cooled my boil in about 40 minutes.... I sat it in 6 inches of snow on my porch, and it is all of about 5 degrees out right now

broutt said:

how did you reach and maintain a boil at that ambient temp??

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The starting volume was about 3.5 gallons. My 20psi banjo burner got it rolling in about 7 minutes. I ended up with about 2.75 in the primary after 60 minutes of very vigorous boil.

Just transferred to secondary tonight and the hydro sample was delish.

-Cheers

0 degrees? Dayyyyummm! It got down to 33 here last night and I thought we were gonna die! I don't see how y'all can function in such temperatures.
Beers,
Ken

I wish I still lived in the U.P. I miss the cold.

Very nice, I will be going from above freezing temps (50s) to well below when I head up to Washington this week. They are having the worst winter storms in like 10 years I guess.

The winter warmers (Jolly roger christmas ale, Descute Jeabule etc..) will taste all that much better though.