Richmond, VA

Hi there. New to home brewing, found you guys online. Just put my first batch in the fermenter, hope all goes well. Cheers!

Us Old Dominion folks have quite a presence on HBT!

Good Luck.

Greetings from the west end, welcome to the forum!

I woke up this AM and she was bubbling away back there. The house smells really nice too.. The only concern I have is that its a bit warm in my house. But I hear that Ale's are fairly forgiving to temps. I might should have waited until it was a bit cooler outside. Any thoughts.

I know what you mean. I keep my house pretty cool but even with that my fermentation temps would easily reach 72 or more. Heres a trick to shave off up to 10 deg's. Get a tee shirt wet and wring it out so its just damp. Place it over your carboy. Place the carboy in a container with several inches of water in the bottom. I use a rubbermaid thingy from wal-mart. I also put frozen bottles of water in there and change them out 3x a day. I sit that in front of my ac vent but you could also just put a fan in front so it blows across the damp tee shirt. As the shirt evaporates it has a cooling effect and doing this I can ferment down to 66 with no problem at all during the hottest summer months.

I always try to keep my temps on the lower side of whats recommended by the manufacturer. If it goes too far into the 70's you risk getting the bubble gum or banana flavors that you may not want. Excluding Hefeweizen's of course.

I think during the summer months, I will be moving my gear down to NC to my sisters basement, or perhaps even my fathers house. He keeps it in the 60's. As per here, I guess it has to be a seasonal hobby. I guess I should stock up on some extra carboys. haha.