I’m curious how often everyone is having to swap out ice? Right now I’ve got my temp set to 52F and my cooler of ice/water (no lid) in my serving chest freezer (~36F). I have to change the ice once every 18-24 hours to maintain temp. Wondering if I’d be better off using the coolers insulating...
Thanks for all the replies. I’m going to try running the pump inside my chest freezer in a bowl with some water so I don’t have to worry about swapping ice or frozen bottles. The freezer hovers right around 33 so should be plenty cold. I’ll report back when I get there.
Yowzers what size cooler are you using and about how much water? I don’t mind swapping out frozen water bottles if that will keep the temp in the 40s. My ambient temp is about 66 so seems like this should work great.
Thanks for the great review. I'm considering buying the fermenter and cooling system, but curious: has anyone had success holding temperatures in the high 40's-low 50's with the cooler and ice water method? I mainly want this so I can step up my lager game. Thanks
I just brewed a 6 gallon batch of Black IPA with OG 1.068 and pitched about 400ml of harvested 002 slurry at 58 degrees F. I've got some cold groundwater here in the mountains and my Grainfather CFC is crazy efficient. Since this is on the very low end of the spectrum for this yeast, I'm...
Does anyone have experience with Pales/IPAs hopped heavily with Columbus and fermented with Vermont (Conan) yeast? Seems like it could be a favorable combo (tropical and dank/piney) but wanted to inquire. I have access to a lot of Columbus and was thinking about using a good bit in the boil and...
Thanks. Do you start the sparge with the first runnings still in the mash tun? Or do you pump the first runnings to the BK first? I've only batch sparged up until now. Thanks again!
Can someone please detail their process for mashing out and fly sparging on a direct fired RIMS system? It's a new configuration for me and while I have a basic understanding of how it works, it would be helpful if someone could provide a "walk through" of their process. I have a 2-tier pump...
Looks like mine finished at 1.016, for 7.73% abv. According to my notes this batch was delicious, great hop presence and malt backbone, but didn't taste much like Jai Alai. Still an excellent IPA! I'm sure yours will turn out great.
Curious if anyone's skipped dry hopping when doing a significant hopstand, and what were your results like? I have a brew fermenting right now that used 5.5 oz various American hops in a 175F hopstand for an hour. Gravity sample (after 10 days) has huge aroma and flavor, so I'm considering...