Hi all,
My fellow brewers and I found a 11.1 cubic foot chest freezer on craigslist for $75 so we snagged it and set it up with a space heater and a temperature control unit for a fermentation chamber.
Currently we have a Kolsch that's been fermenting for about 10 days and an IIPA (Pliny clone, really pumped) that we put in 2 days ago. We set the temperature to 16C for the first 24 hours of the IIPA and have since then increased the temperature to 17.5C. We're slowly warming it up to 20C by about 0.5C a day.
My question is if we should open the freezer every now and then to release pressure buildup from the fermentation, since the freezer is a closed system. I've been opening it daily. Currently I can tell it's mostly CO2 in there because it's got a really funky smell (the cominbation of a kolsch and IIPA fermenting in close quarters) and when I put my head in to smell it feels like I'm breathing CO2.
Anything I need to watch out for?
My fellow brewers and I found a 11.1 cubic foot chest freezer on craigslist for $75 so we snagged it and set it up with a space heater and a temperature control unit for a fermentation chamber.
Currently we have a Kolsch that's been fermenting for about 10 days and an IIPA (Pliny clone, really pumped) that we put in 2 days ago. We set the temperature to 16C for the first 24 hours of the IIPA and have since then increased the temperature to 17.5C. We're slowly warming it up to 20C by about 0.5C a day.
My question is if we should open the freezer every now and then to release pressure buildup from the fermentation, since the freezer is a closed system. I've been opening it daily. Currently I can tell it's mostly CO2 in there because it's got a really funky smell (the cominbation of a kolsch and IIPA fermenting in close quarters) and when I put my head in to smell it feels like I'm breathing CO2.
Anything I need to watch out for?