Hi From Wigan, England

[KarenChap]

Hi Everyone,

My husband and I have been brewing since June 2018 and we absolutely love it. So much more rewarding and the taste is always 100 times better. We've done about 14 brews back when we lived in South Africa and when we made our move over to England in May, our one suitcase was full of brewing stuff as we were desperate to make a brew as soon as possible. Clearly we weren't thinking straight, haha! We shipped over all our bottles over and had to wait for those to arrive before we started a brew anyway. Converting Rands to Pounds is rather hectic and we would have spent too much buying new bottles here in England.
So we waited a week before our stuff arrived and we put a brew on...so excited as its a Cerveza Mexican style lager. We've done Mexican Lagers before, a different brand but definitely one of our favourites.
I dont know all the terminology used for brewing so I assume its called the primary fermentation...the step before the bottling. Bottling being the secondary fermentation?

This brew has been in primary fermentation for quite a long time, longer than any other lager and I'm starting to worry...each day I sit and watch it and its still bubbling away. *sigh*
The actual kit said fermentation is around 7 days, similar to most of our other lagers and ale's.
So far this beer has been in primary fermentation for 4 weeks.

I'm so excited for it to stop bubbling so that we can bottle it but then we still have to wait about 14 days.

Anyways, hoping the brew is still ok and we haven't done anything wrong, it is a lot colder here than SA but we do have a blanket around it and a heater below it.

How does everyone else keep their brews at the right temperature in the colder climates?
Any advice would be great.

 

[ncbrewer]

Welcome to HBT.

Four weeks is a long time. Bubbles might be CO2 coming out of solution. I'd check gravity, and check again 3 days later. If it's stable (exactly the same) and in a reasonable range, it should be ok to bottle. I use this two gravity sample method for every batch to prevent bottle bombs. You can't trust bubbles or lack of bubbles to tell you when it's finished. And since you're worried about being too cool, it might not be finished.

For heating the fermenter, I use a seedling warming mat tied around the outside of the swamp cooler tub (tub of water that the fermenter sits in to heat or cool). they also sell brew belts for warming.

Good luck.

 

[MaxStout]

Welcome to the group, from Minnesota!

I'm in a very cold climate. I have a small chest freezer that I adapted to a fermentation chamber. I use a dual temp controller (STC-1000) to keep the temp within range. For the heat cycle I just use a 25W bulb inside a gallon paint can, but you can use an inexpensive terrarium heat mat just as well.

Have a look through the DIY section, as there are lots of discussions on making one.

 

[Cyclman]

Welcome to the group, from Colorado

 

[KarenChap]

Welcome to HBT.

I'd check gravity, and check again 3 days later.
.

Thank you for that info, We checked the gravity today and will check again in three days. Yup we are concerned about bottle bombs, we've had a few of those before.
My husband has made a heater out of an old plastic flower pot upside down and he has a globe in there to keep it warm and we've wrapped a blanket around it.

 

[KarenChap]

Thanks MaxStout for the welcome, your freezer sounds interesting. I'll have a look in the DIY section.