Mountain_Bum
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- Joined
- Feb 8, 2014
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- 4
So on Sunday I did my first batch! Things actually went really well and didn't run into any problems. Using some foil and sitting the kettle between two burners of the crappy electric stove really made a huge difference. 
I am doing the best to clone a beer from a Montana Brewery that I really enjoy called Cold Smoke Scotch Ale. There have been a few posts on here that have the recipes from the brewery but I was using extracts and steeped some grains so it was a little different. Boil time was 2 hours too.
I have no guidlines to follow for OG and FG either so that will be interesting. Measured 1.049 after the boil and chill before it went in the BB.
Home made wort chiller worked out pretty good too. Got it down to pitched temp in 10 min or less I think. Kind of helps when the water is around 45 degress pumping through it.
Anyway, on to my question.
The ambient air of the Apartment is 65 so I figured that may work well to my advantage (The wyeast ale I used calls for 65 too). I did a started (wasn't sure how well it was working at first) and started getting some airlock activity in just 2-3 hours and could see the krausen start to build.
Looked good the next morning and still doing it's thing, got back from snowboarding the next day/afternoon to find the bung and airlock about 5 feet away on the carpet and a nice newJackson Pollock painting on the wall (OK, it wasn't that bad actually). Went and cleaned and sanitized everything and just put it back on. Didn't freak out about this either so I was happy about that.
Unfortunately it continued to overflow as the temp of the ferment was up to around 68-70 (I know fermentation is an exothermic reaction so I was sort of expecting some change plus the sticky thermometer probably isn't the most exact).
Figured the reason things were so lively is because the temp was on the higher end of what is prefered so I put the carboy inside of a plastic tub and filled it with about 3-5 inches of water and put it in the hall closet. Figured th water would help draw the temp down and possibly help keep in down in the cooler cloest.
Noticed shortly after that things settled down or at least the airlock wasn't getting filled with crap and clogging again. On my way to work this morning I checked it again and it was reading about 63 and the airlock was clean and still popping away.
I would like to have one of those little dorm fridges or something to put the fermentors in to control the temp in the future but space and money dictate that as not possible for the moment.
One thing I did learn from this is to just use a damn blow off tube!!!!
It seems so much easier. I'm using a 6.5G better bottle so thought I would be safe but had thought about it just as a precaution. Guy at the LHBS talked me out of it. Kind of regret it now. Learn from experience I guess. Guess there is always that fermlock anti foam stuff I have read a little about.
*****************************************************
I figured for some, TL/DR but final question is:
What are some ways to control the fermenation temperature without the use of a refrigeration unit? Especially if it starts to get really hot outside and the inside of the apartment gets warmer? Triying to think of a few things for the future although I am kind of doubting I will ever need to raise the temp, mostly just lower it.
I tried searching but wasn't coming up with what I was hoping to find, wasn't sure the best way to phrase the question in the search.
I am doing the best to clone a beer from a Montana Brewery that I really enjoy called Cold Smoke Scotch Ale. There have been a few posts on here that have the recipes from the brewery but I was using extracts and steeped some grains so it was a little different. Boil time was 2 hours too.
I have no guidlines to follow for OG and FG either so that will be interesting. Measured 1.049 after the boil and chill before it went in the BB.
Home made wort chiller worked out pretty good too. Got it down to pitched temp in 10 min or less I think. Kind of helps when the water is around 45 degress pumping through it.
Anyway, on to my question.
The ambient air of the Apartment is 65 so I figured that may work well to my advantage (The wyeast ale I used calls for 65 too). I did a started (wasn't sure how well it was working at first) and started getting some airlock activity in just 2-3 hours and could see the krausen start to build.
Looked good the next morning and still doing it's thing, got back from snowboarding the next day/afternoon to find the bung and airlock about 5 feet away on the carpet and a nice newJackson Pollock painting on the wall (OK, it wasn't that bad actually). Went and cleaned and sanitized everything and just put it back on. Didn't freak out about this either so I was happy about that.
Unfortunately it continued to overflow as the temp of the ferment was up to around 68-70 (I know fermentation is an exothermic reaction so I was sort of expecting some change plus the sticky thermometer probably isn't the most exact).
Figured the reason things were so lively is because the temp was on the higher end of what is prefered so I put the carboy inside of a plastic tub and filled it with about 3-5 inches of water and put it in the hall closet. Figured th water would help draw the temp down and possibly help keep in down in the cooler cloest.
Noticed shortly after that things settled down or at least the airlock wasn't getting filled with crap and clogging again. On my way to work this morning I checked it again and it was reading about 63 and the airlock was clean and still popping away.
I would like to have one of those little dorm fridges or something to put the fermentors in to control the temp in the future but space and money dictate that as not possible for the moment.
One thing I did learn from this is to just use a damn blow off tube!!!!
It seems so much easier. I'm using a 6.5G better bottle so thought I would be safe but had thought about it just as a precaution. Guy at the LHBS talked me out of it. Kind of regret it now. Learn from experience I guess. Guess there is always that fermlock anti foam stuff I have read a little about.
*****************************************************
I figured for some, TL/DR but final question is:
What are some ways to control the fermenation temperature without the use of a refrigeration unit? Especially if it starts to get really hot outside and the inside of the apartment gets warmer? Triying to think of a few things for the future although I am kind of doubting I will ever need to raise the temp, mostly just lower it.
I tried searching but wasn't coming up with what I was hoping to find, wasn't sure the best way to phrase the question in the search.
