i definatley enjoyed reading ur debate there, pretty informative(?). so when certain yeasts and brews tell you to ferment at a certain temp, are they talking about the middle of the wort or the temp of the outside of the fermenter?
thanks again revvy for the advice. i stopped trying to heat my beer last night. it got up to 72 pretty much all last night and early this morning even though the heater was off, but still nothing changed at all. right now, its about 5pm and the temp is pretty steady at 65. im still a little nervous cause i dont see anything going on like my last brew which had a lot less fermentables. but i guess every brew is different. i just have to wait another week and a half or so, then bottle and maybe get a taste in the process.
cheers
A lot of us err on the side of temp caution...trying to shoot for a strip temp a few degrees less than what we want....UNLESS we are using some form of temp control....like a refrigerator, chest freezer of even a swamp cooler full of ice water where we are driving the temp of the liguid down...then after a while we can assume the liguid and the strip are in equalibrium...That's why a water bath is even a good idea...because the water will hold temp longer and help cushion any wild temp fluctuations....Or if you have it in a fridge you have to figure that after a few hours the fermenter and the lquid and the strip are in alignment...
But obviously that other guy disagrees...(like they say as 10 brewers a question and get 12 different answers. I'm not going to debate it here...and I'm just passing on what I was taught by many of the people on here.)
)
But a mister beer is tiny...so if you had a thermometer strip on that I would say it is close...but in a 5 gallon bucket many of us err on the side of caution...I've been doing it this way for a lot of batches both in a mr beer, and in bigger fermenters..and my beers have turned out.
And to your other statement about it being different from your last batch......
One thing you HAVE to realize....you can NEVER compare one fermentation with another...even a split batch into two carboys with the same yeast will sometimes act totally different to each other...it could be any number of reasons, including a single temp degree difference....or something else we will never know..
You have to remember, as opposed to in organic chemistry, or even most cooking, the minute you pitch the yeast, you introduced a LIVING MICRO ORGANISM....you didn't just mix coolaid powder, sugar and water, you gave up control of the process to another living creature...So you introduced a "wild card" to the equation....a random factor left up to the whims of the little buggies...
Think of the yeasties as a teenager or a partner, and you will understand how powerless you are...
A lot of new brewers think THEY are in charge...they decide when they think the should rack or bottle, and they don't pay attention to whether the beer is ready for the next step...
Then they start is my beer ruined threads because the beer is not living up to THEIR expectations...it's not carbonated when THEY want it to be...or the secondary it to soon, and all of a sudden it starts another krausen (which freaks them out because they didn't see it in the bucket...now in the carboy it is scary and ugly) and the panic...or it doesn't appear to be fermenting in their primary and they want to fix it by warming it up
But the truth of the matter is, WE ARE NOT IN CHARGE...the yeasties are...all we are responsible for is building a nice clean factory (a sanitized fermenter) stocked with plenty of food and materials to work with (the wort) and then we just are supposed to step away and let them do what they've been doing since time began....
That's why you will find a lot of us don't secondary...we walk away from the fermenter for 3-4 weeks, then we bottle or keg...we let the yeasties do their job, and also something that a lot of people who secondary don't get the benefit of.....they clean up their own messes...the get rid of a lot of the byproducts of their fermentation...Palmer talks about the yeasts cleaning up after themselves in How to Brew...
SO basically a lot of us now just leave the yeas plenty of time to do their jobs...figuring a month is enough time to ferment, clean and settle, and still way within the safety window of the "dreaded boogeyman autolysis," then we just bottle or keg...
THis is a game of patience and trust.
SO again, don't compare it to your last batch...and don't worry about it...all is well.
And definitely check out the Mr Beer sticky at the top of the beginners forum...you will find a lot of good tips and info...
A lot of new brewer's thinl