It so happened that I hit a homebrew drought in the middle of this endless winter so I decided to brew. I wasn't idle in the downtime and managed to switch from using a drill to power my Monster Mill to using a garage door opener. After a few issues I managed to get a crush that I was happy with and brewed my first beer. [TL;DR -> jump to bullet points]
During my first brew after moving houses I had to scramble for a lot of things but all in all it went OK. By the time my mash was done it was freezing outside and when I took my gravity readings outside with the refractometer I was amazed that I overshot my OG for the first time ever! I thought it might be due to the improved crush of the grains so I was happy as a clam.
Fast forward one week, next brew day, still freezing. This time I had adjusted my grain bill to a higher efficiency based on the previous brew day. I also changed my SS braid for a manifold since the last drain took forever. When I checked my OG and put the numbers into BS it told me that I had 116% efficiency! I thought this must have been due to problems when I weighed my grains so I didn't put much thought into it.
Yesterday I finally had the eye-opening moment when brewing an imperial porter. It was, surprise surprise, freezing again (and snowing) and I overshot my OG once more. I had plenty of wort I set aside a good cup to take a hydrometer reading later on. After it had cooled down to roughly room temperature I took the sample inside and checked the gravity. 1.057 instead of 1.076 as suggested by the refractometer. I thought the hydrometer must have gotten damaged during its long hibernation so I took another refractometer sample. This time, the refractometer had been inside at RT and the reading dropped from 19.5 to 15.7B.
(Yes, I did stir like it owes me money). I added DME to make up for the difference...
Next thing I noticed was that it took forever to get to a boil at 0 °C and below (plus wind and snow). I had drained way more wort than expected so my BK was near capacity and I had to watch it closely. It must have never reached a full rolling boil again after the hot break because after about 45 minutes into the boil not even half a gallon had evaporated. So I turned up the heat and had to boil for 120 instead of 75 minutes.
[TL;DR]
If nothing else here are a couple of things I learned from my freezing brew days:
And here's the only good thing about brewing in the cold: Wort chilling takes almost no time!
:rockin:
During my first brew after moving houses I had to scramble for a lot of things but all in all it went OK. By the time my mash was done it was freezing outside and when I took my gravity readings outside with the refractometer I was amazed that I overshot my OG for the first time ever! I thought it might be due to the improved crush of the grains so I was happy as a clam.
Fast forward one week, next brew day, still freezing. This time I had adjusted my grain bill to a higher efficiency based on the previous brew day. I also changed my SS braid for a manifold since the last drain took forever. When I checked my OG and put the numbers into BS it told me that I had 116% efficiency! I thought this must have been due to problems when I weighed my grains so I didn't put much thought into it.
Yesterday I finally had the eye-opening moment when brewing an imperial porter. It was, surprise surprise, freezing again (and snowing) and I overshot my OG once more. I had plenty of wort I set aside a good cup to take a hydrometer reading later on. After it had cooled down to roughly room temperature I took the sample inside and checked the gravity. 1.057 instead of 1.076 as suggested by the refractometer. I thought the hydrometer must have gotten damaged during its long hibernation so I took another refractometer sample. This time, the refractometer had been inside at RT and the reading dropped from 19.5 to 15.7B.
(Yes, I did stir like it owes me money). I added DME to make up for the difference...Next thing I noticed was that it took forever to get to a boil at 0 °C and below (plus wind and snow). I had drained way more wort than expected so my BK was near capacity and I had to watch it closely. It must have never reached a full rolling boil again after the hot break because after about 45 minutes into the boil not even half a gallon had evaporated. So I turned up the heat and had to boil for 120 instead of 75 minutes.
[TL;DR]
If nothing else here are a couple of things I learned from my freezing brew days:
- Do not trust your refractometer when it's freezing outside. Although it claims to have ATC it does not seem to work well at extreme ambient temperatures.
- Make sure you add enough heat to the boil kettle. Sounds obvious but I was really amazed by how much I had to turn up the heat in this weather. This also affects the boil-off rate so be prepared and have a second propane tank ready.
And here's the only good thing about brewing in the cold: Wort chilling takes almost no time!
:rockin:
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