Noobrewer

[GibsNHops]

So I'm relatively new to the home brewing game. Getting ready to start my 4th brew. My first was bottled and will be ready next Friday. I'm using a two gallon fermenting bucket and two secondary one gallon carboys. My first brew was an all grain brew, have moved on to extract brewing since then. Using an electric stove and having a lot of trouble maintaining consistency with my temps. Tips? Tricks? Help a noob out!!

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[chickypad]

What temps are you talking about with extract brewing? Do you mean you don't have enough heat to keep a consistent boil? Some techniques may be straddling 2 burners, insulating the kettle, a heat stick, or with extract I don't think DMS is such a big issue so you could boil with the lid part way on.

If you're talking about fermentation temps you can do a simple swamp cooler to help keep temps stable (lots of threads on this).

 

[GibsNHops]

Temps are running about 180 when boiling. I've messed with the high/med/low nobs. Just seems like if its not 180+ it drops to low. My LHBS is telling me I need to maintain a 162-170 range for extracts

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[Kaz]

Makes no sense...if you are using steeping grains, 160-170 is where you want to hold it while steeping. Otherwise, the only other temp to worry about in extract brewing is pitching temp and fermentation, everything else is done at boiling....a boil is a boil, the temp that it boils at is pretty meaningless. I don't think there is any where (on Earth) where wort or water will boil at 160F

 

[chickypad]

Heat the water to 170-175, turn off the burner, put the grains in and put on the lid. You don't need to really control temps that much for steeping 155-170 is pretty common.

 

[GibsNHops]

So if I'm doing a full extract brew, no grains, once I bring to a boil, I don't really need to worry temp wise during the 60 min boil time? Bare with me... I'm reading a book and trying to soak up as much info as I can off of HB. Kinda info overload sometimes. I'm pretty much good to go on the initial brew and fermenting process, just trying to make tweaks where needed

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[TheBlindBeastBrewery]

Temperature is only an issue when steeping specialty grains, as others have said. You don't want to steep any hotter than 170 degrees. Once you remove your specialty grains, just boil!

 

[chickypad]

There should be a good roiling boil on the surface of the wort, but you can't change the temp at which it will boil at a given location. Assuming you don't live at something like 17,000 ft elevation, if your thermometer is only measuring 180 at a full boil it sounds like it needs to be calibrated.