Who is brewing today?

It's snowing in Atlanta so....

I'm brewing my first B'sF-made recipe, a 1-gallon American Pale Ale. Target FG 1.012, Target IBU 37.64, Target ABV 4.65%

We'll see how it goes. Still boiling right now.
 
Tomorrow. Belgian Quad. Then a small test batch with Lemon Drop hops later in the week.
 
I beat you to the Lemon Drop hops. SMaSH with Golden Promise. It'll be ready soon.
 
11°F outside. Sure, why not brew? Today I'm making my wife her Chocolate Raspberry Porter.
 
11°F outside. Sure, why not brew? Today I'm making my wife her Chocolate Raspberry Porter.

I made a sweet stout for my girlfriend recently. She really loved it! I think she had 3 or 4 of them by the time I polished off the keg.

Oh yeah...I made a Scottish ale last night. It was so cold outside it only took me about 25 min. to get 5.5 gal. from boiling to 58 deg. in an ice bath. I didn't move 1100 miles south to deal with below freezing temperatures. Somebody is going to be on the receiving end of a scathing complaint e-mail if this keeps up.
 
I beat you to the Lemon Drop hops. SMaSH with Golden Promise. It'll be ready soon.
I'll be dry-hopping a Sorachi Saison with Lemon Drop. Should be a nice little session beer.
 
Planning a Lemon Drop SMASH for the week. A Belgian Quad in the fermentor today.
 
That's your 10%er eh? I bet she's ripping along
No airlock activity as of this morning but with the high sugar and the large amount of oxygen I put in it, I wouldn't really expect any just yet. I won't start to worry until tomorrow morning.
 
Good morning all...so, the Pilsner with the CaraPils that everyone was curious about hit a bit of a snag. I placed the fermenter (carboy) in a mini-freezer with an InkBird temp. controller and a mini-heater. I let it sit at 52 deg. F and do its thing for 4 days. I took a gravity reading and it was very low but I figured that it was just slow to start. I took another reading at 8 days and no change in gravity. So, I did a new starter with White Labs pilsner yeast and re-pitched. I checked the gravity at about 4 days since I re-pitched and nothing. I let it go another 7 days and re-tested and still nothing - something was wrong.

Upon further investigation, I discovered that the entire bottom half of the wort had frozen solid! Apparently the temp sensor on the InkBird was too high in the freezer and wasn't shutting the freezer off enough to prevent freezing. So, I took the carboy out and let it thaw and stuck it in a cool (but not chilly) closet. Wouldn't you know it, but the darn thing is bubbling away and really krausening now. Everything looks to be back on track.

For the record, color, smell, and taste (albeit I tasted it when it was half frozen and stalled) seem to be not too far off what I would expect from a pilsner (I know, it would be hard to tell with those conditions, but it wasn't waaaay off anyway). I plan on testing the gravity this weekend and transferring it to a secondary. I will be lagering it in a secondary carboy back in the freezer but with a few modifications to my setup. 1) I am going to install a wooden floor in the freezer to keep the glass off the bottom where the condensing coils are, 2) I am going to better position the temp sensor lower in the freezer near the freezing coils (common sense, I know), and 3) I am going to switch to a thermal jacket for the carboy instead of the mini-heater. This should allow me to lager around 33-34 degrees and clear that baby right up.

I plan on force carbonating this one in a Corny keg. I'll keep everyone posted on how this one turns out.

Cheers!
 
That was exactly my initial concern with placing the probe in the air. I found a 2 outlet/port/whatever cap that fits over my carboy. In one hole is the airlock. The other hole has a pinched off copper tube that goes into the wort. Stuck the probe in there, and the wort controls the temperature controller instead of the air in the cabinet controlling it. You can really get some wild swings in such a small cabinet by monitoring air temperature.
 
That's a good idea, Jeff. Basically the temp. probe tube on a stainless conical fermenter. I have some of those double opening carboy caps...I may have to give this a try.

Thanks for the feedback!
 
I tape my probe to the outside of fermentor and seal with insulation not as accurate as reading inside wort but I'm happy with this
 
I tape my probe to the outside of fermentor and seal with insulation not as accurate as reading inside wort but I'm happy with this
Better than measuring air, in my opinion.
 
No airlock activity as of this morning but with the high sugar and the large amount of oxygen I put in it, I wouldn't really expect any just yet. I won't start to worry until tomorrow morning.
She's ripping along now! I'm raising the temperature 2 degrees C per day to make sure I get full attenuation and am adding another pound of D180 candi syrup tomorrow.
 
Better than measuring air, in my opinion.
It's better than measuring air but you are measuring the coolest spot of the fermentation (the interface between the fermentor and the air in the fridge). Better still, get a bucket of water, put it in the fridge and measure the temperature of the water. It won't be exact but the water will dampen out the temperature swings.
 
There's already a "bucket of water" in the chamber. ;)

Actually, that's what I do for my keezer. My probe is in a container of water. I could never figure out a good way to put it in a keg. :D
 
It would have to be a fair volume of water eh similar to the volume of wort fermenting plus I'm gathering that water ain't heating up from the fermentation
 
I don't think the volume of water would be too significant. I like your point about fermentation heat.
 

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