So my first brew day went smooth and I have the 5 gallons of Hefeweizen in the chest freezer now set at 18.8C/65F.
I take a look in there twice a day (it has only been in there 36 hours now) and the bucket lid is bulging up quite a bit. I removed the airlock base/blowoff tube to make sure nothing was clogged and it is clean as a whistle and I don't see any krausen coming up to the hole. (sanitized with star san spray bottle before putting back in) Is this major bulging normal or is this thing going to blow? Got my first deep breath of C02 while my head was down in there too which didn't feel good....first brewing lesson learned.
My other unrelated question is the temp. is 65F actually going to yield a lot higher fermentation temp? I'm shooting for the low range with this beer (which on the yeast packet says 65F) for more clove flavor than banana, but do I need to set the temp below the recommended fermentation range for the yeast to yield the actual lo temp of 65F? How much lower do I need to go to get that?
I take a look in there twice a day (it has only been in there 36 hours now) and the bucket lid is bulging up quite a bit. I removed the airlock base/blowoff tube to make sure nothing was clogged and it is clean as a whistle and I don't see any krausen coming up to the hole. (sanitized with star san spray bottle before putting back in) Is this major bulging normal or is this thing going to blow? Got my first deep breath of C02 while my head was down in there too which didn't feel good....first brewing lesson learned.
My other unrelated question is the temp. is 65F actually going to yield a lot higher fermentation temp? I'm shooting for the low range with this beer (which on the yeast packet says 65F) for more clove flavor than banana, but do I need to set the temp below the recommended fermentation range for the yeast to yield the actual lo temp of 65F? How much lower do I need to go to get that?