Muntons Midas Touch

[alexmet1]

Just started my second ever brew which is Muntons Premium Midas Touch - a golden ale.

I was just wondering whether I am doing things right here. Let me explain.

The instructions said to add 3.5 litres of boiling water to the wort and then 16.5 litres of cold water. This seemed fine at the time however, usually the optimum brewing temperature of ales is 18-20 degrees Celsius (correct me if I'm wrong) and when I pitched the yeast, the temperature was at about 35 degrees! Very high, I thought.

I was wondering whether this is okay? It's the morning after now and it has dropped to 26 and is fermenting nicely. On the instructions it says nothing about the specific brew temperature but it does say "store in a warm place at 18-20 degrees".

I followed the instructions very precisely and I did everything right.

Let me know your thoughts.

Thanks in advance.

 

[unionrdr]

In my experiences,that 16.5L of cold water should've been in the ridge a day or to in order to be good & cold. And just adding cold water to boiling hot wort will only get you so far. I learned that on my second brew with Cooper's instructions which were similar. So I started mixing in the brew kettle in order to do an ice bath in the sink. Then added DME to the boil & saved the Cooper's can for flame out. That allowed me to do some flavor hop additions.
You can see the progession there.
Anyway,that temp is still too high. Proper chilling of the wort down to say 75F would've made it easier for the cold water top off to get it down to 65F or so.

 

[alexmet1]

So what will happen to my brew? And the wort itself wasn't boiling, just some water.

 

[unionrdr]

You'll get off flavors from the high ferment temps. Get the temps down with a swamp cooler or cooler area.

 

[alexmet1]

I can put it in my kitchen sink but that involves moving the whole fermenter about 10 meters with risk of disturbing the yeast and things.

 

[unionrdr]

While it's fermenting,it gets an upward swirling action going anyway. But a swamp cooler would be better with frozen water bottles to keep temps down during initial fermentation.

 

[alexmet1]

I don't have a swamp cooler. So what do you recommend?

 

[unionrdr]

A swamp cooler is just a plastic washtub. Maybe a plastic waste can (clean!) that can hold the fermenter & water & frozen bottles?...

 

[alexmet1]

ive put it in some ice water in my kitchen sink. that should be okay..?

 

[unionrdr]

Yeah,bu make sure the temp doesn't go too low. Mid 60's would be fine.

 

[alexmet1]

its now down to 73 so a while to go yet