I think you guys have answered my question about this (I only looked over the last page of posts, so forgive me if this is explicitly answered earlier), but I want to be sure about this...
One of our commercial breweries is using this yeast (and making great beer with it), and I really like the short timeframe. He told me that I didn't need to worry about the temp much because the heat of metabolism will keep it up over the day or so needed. Of course he's brewing much larger batches, but I thought it sounded good.
I'm still in active fermentation 5 days out. Clearly I needed to pay more attention to keeping the temp up in some way. But here's the question(s)--
1) Is a blanket enough, or do I need to rig up a heater?
2) It's been bouncing between 75 and 100 here in Richmond, and the fermenter is on my screened in porch. Am I asking for trouble by having the temp vary this much (I'm thinking how fluctuating temperatures seem to emphasize off-flavors/aromas by yeast with other strains)?
3) I've been trying to downsize my brewing footprint since I moved recently (I know, it sounds crazy, but I have good reasons)... what's the simplest yet cheapest way of keeping my temp up if I need a heater?
Thanks!
Rick