Congrats! You are spot on. The fact that numerous others have said it before you in this thread with much less sarcasm should in no way diminish what you have accomplished.
Actually it was myself that brought up the cell count stuff by peicing everything together myself. It's not the ABV necessarily (although that does play a major facot), it's also the cell count that determines the heat of the ferment.
My 1 bottle of WhiteLabs will not give me a hot ferment. There just isn't the cell count there to make it happen.
Because at some point somebody once told you or you read that Jamil was THE expert, you are taking his word as gospel over a) knowledge learned yourself or b) the first hand experience everybody here is sharing.
All I know is that he wins awards.. LOTS of them. He wins beers that go up against 300 entries.
How can you possibly think you are the one being wronged when you throw out snarky comments like "oh, really" and "since you have 250 gallons under your belt you should be able to tell me right away."
I back that statement. If someone wants to wave their sword and shield of experience, then they should have NO problem telling me what exact temps I should have ambient vs ferment for any style of beer and yeast type.
2 People answered me on this forum and another. Bobby was one of them. No one else could really answer the question.
I'm glad this thread has brought out usable info to many people, but I'm disappointed that people are continuing to try and help you despite your absolute lack of respect for their experience. Piss poor form, dude. Piss poor.
There's really helping people, and then there is spreading brew lore. The latter will lead people down the wrong path which causes them to waste time and money. This is why it's important to get correct information before people like myself spend time and money.
For instance.
This one person saved me money here. I was prepared to spend $20 with shipping on stickers for my *glass* carboys (there's another thing.. the plastic being the same as glass). Someone pointed out that he could not tell what temp Bobby's fermenters were at.
I looked and looked at Bobby's pics. That person was right. I could not make out what Bobby's temp was. Despite Jamil saying they are fine to use. The only way to reliably guage temp is digital. So I have 4 temp guages on order from China (ebay) and am only going to use digital for now on. I'm goign to use them in the mashtun, carboys, you name it.
Also, people should know that the ferment temp for an average session beer should only increase a few degrees (from what I understand and
have been told by 2 people. One guy said 5 degrees at most).
People really really need to be aware of the cell count of their yeast as this effects ferment temp. Fresh dry yeast will put liquid yeast to shame in cell count.
If you want a safe, quality, fast acting liquid yeast with no starter needed, you need
TWO packs of fresh WyYeast for 5 gallons. The benefit is not having to add a 1/2 gallon of starter to your ferment. There's big benefits to using 2 packs of WyYeast as compared to any other way of using yeast and it's something that maybe people should explore their next batch.
There a lot of people who brew according to brew lore. And that's great for them if they are happy with their home brew. I'm trying to figure out the science behind these things and really need numbers and facts before I spend money.
After your boil and cooldown, I really suggest pitching TWO fresh WyYeast smack packs.
Don't oxygenate the wort. No starters. Don't pitch it in warm wort. Only pitch it in cool desired wort temp (Jamil said this). Also John Palmer said that the yeast will be under stress if it's too low of temp and start giving off sulphur flavors so try not to be a hero.
Bobby_M has been a huge huge help with all this and I thank him a lot for all his help. Jamil is someone who I highly respect and has also been invaluable as a source of some information. John Palmer too.
