Apprehensive, big brew

[Rolsom]

I made my first wee heavy this morning with 12 lbs of LME and Nottingham yeast. I pitched a 1300 ml starter. This is a 5 gallon batch put into a 6.5 gallon BMB. I have the brew in the basement that is 60 °F and it has been down there for 8 hrs.

The Fermometer is reading 66 °F and I cant get the temp down, I have the BMB sitting in a bucket of water that I have been filling with ice as fast as the ice maker makes it.

The foam has already filled 1/4 of the available head space and the blow off tube has a steady stream of bubbles.
I'm wondering if I shouldn't have given such a motivational speech to the yeasties before the big game, because they sure took the field all fired up.

If this is how it looks in the first 8 hours, how bad is this ride going to be?

 

[flars]

It will help if you can freeze water in plastic soda bottles for cooling to supplement the ice cubes.

 

[beergolf]

What temp did you pitch at? What yeast?

The reason I ask is it is best to pitch at or below the low end of the recommended temp range for the yeast you are using. As you are figuring out, once the yeast takes off it is very difficult to bring the temp down. A big beer is even more difficult to control.

keep trying but when the fermentation does finally slow down, make sure that you don't cool the brew too much.

 

[Rolsom]

I've been downing 12 oz Gatorade bottles, filling them with water, and placing them in the freezer. I don't think that will help until the morning.

 

[Rolsom]

What temp did you pitch at? What yeast?

The reason I ask is it is best to pitch at or below the low end of the recommended temp range for the yeast you are using. As you are figuring out, once the yeast takes off it is very difficult to bring the temp down. A big beer is even more difficult to control.

keep trying but when the fermentation does finally slow down, make sure that you don't cool the brew too much.

The temp was 70 at pitch. I'm not going to make that mistake again.

 

[divrguy]

66 is awesome if you can maintain it. You may want to bite the bullet and go buy a bag of ice. Might be worth the piece of mind [emoji482]

 

[Calder]

66 is fine for Notty. One thing in your favor is that the swamp cooler is a great heat-sink and sucks out heat generated n the fermenter, so you don't get run-away temps. Temps in the fermenter will be about a degree above the water temp.

 

[Rolsom]

My biggest fear is a runaway fermentation.
The foam has nearly taken all the headspace and being early in the fermentation I still fear it is still ramping up.
This is also the first time I fermented in a clear vessel so I've actually "seen" it before.