I recently finished building a fermentation chamber so I could try doing some lagers. I brewed up my first lager last month and thought everything was going OK until I checked the specific gravity before racking into my serving keg. It read 1.036 which is much higher than I had expected so I decided I would try and re-pitch the yeast using yeast from a starter I had planned on using for another lager I was brewing this weekend.
No big deal I thought. I would just make another starter and brew the next day. Well, that was yesterday. The day I had promised to take my kids to the water park. Fortunately we got home from the water park at a decent hour and although very buzzed and nearly exhausted I decided I still had time to brew.
The grains were already milled so I wasn't expecting for it to take long, that's where the real nightmare began.
I got my strike water up to temp, mashed in, set my timer, and walked away. About 45 minutes went by and I decided to go check on the temp. The temp was about 15 degrees cooler than I had set my RIMS to be. At first I thought something was wrong with my system and then I realized I hadn't plugged in the heater! GRRRRRR!
My RIMS was mainly designed to just recirculate the mash and maintain temps (low wattage cartridge heater) so I scooped out some of the mash and boiled it in my boil kettle. Somehow I managed to hit my mash temp perfectly without anymore issues. I decided I would basically just start the mash over at this point.
Luckilly, I decided to do a "no sparge" with this recipe so everything went smooth after that until....remember the first lager I had to re-pitch because of a stuck fermentation? Yup, I can only fit one fermentation bucket in it. Now what?
I decided the first lager might already be FUBAR so I decided to re-arrage the shelves in my chamber remove the thermal-well and airlock and just stack the new brew on the old one.
At this point it is laaaate! I am beat, I have been drinking beer in the sun all day and desperately want to go to bed but there is still clean-up to do. Finally, everything was cleaned up and I went to bed.
I did however learn from this horrific day.
1. Always verify the heater for your RIMS is plugged in and working.
2. Always make sure you have room in your fermentation chamber for your next brew before you mill your grains and make the starter.
3. Never drink all day in the hot sun and expect to make good beer later that night.
Who knows? Maybe both brews will turn out fine, or not. I guess only time will tell from here.
I've never had temp issues with my mash before nor have I ever had to deal with a stuck fermentation, hopefully I handled both situations correctly and I'll have some decent lager to drink for the summer.
Fingers crossed.
No big deal I thought. I would just make another starter and brew the next day. Well, that was yesterday. The day I had promised to take my kids to the water park. Fortunately we got home from the water park at a decent hour and although very buzzed and nearly exhausted I decided I still had time to brew.
The grains were already milled so I wasn't expecting for it to take long, that's where the real nightmare began.
I got my strike water up to temp, mashed in, set my timer, and walked away. About 45 minutes went by and I decided to go check on the temp. The temp was about 15 degrees cooler than I had set my RIMS to be. At first I thought something was wrong with my system and then I realized I hadn't plugged in the heater! GRRRRRR!
My RIMS was mainly designed to just recirculate the mash and maintain temps (low wattage cartridge heater) so I scooped out some of the mash and boiled it in my boil kettle. Somehow I managed to hit my mash temp perfectly without anymore issues. I decided I would basically just start the mash over at this point.
Luckilly, I decided to do a "no sparge" with this recipe so everything went smooth after that until....remember the first lager I had to re-pitch because of a stuck fermentation? Yup, I can only fit one fermentation bucket in it. Now what?
I decided the first lager might already be FUBAR so I decided to re-arrage the shelves in my chamber remove the thermal-well and airlock and just stack the new brew on the old one.
At this point it is laaaate! I am beat, I have been drinking beer in the sun all day and desperately want to go to bed but there is still clean-up to do. Finally, everything was cleaned up and I went to bed.
I did however learn from this horrific day.
1. Always verify the heater for your RIMS is plugged in and working.
2. Always make sure you have room in your fermentation chamber for your next brew before you mill your grains and make the starter.
3. Never drink all day in the hot sun and expect to make good beer later that night.
Who knows? Maybe both brews will turn out fine, or not. I guess only time will tell from here.
I've never had temp issues with my mash before nor have I ever had to deal with a stuck fermentation, hopefully I handled both situations correctly and I'll have some decent lager to drink for the summer.
Fingers crossed.
