I don't know where you guys 'n gals are in the world so i'll state the obvious. Scotland gets quite cold in the Winter. Here in the N.E of the country we have been experiencing temperatures of -15 through the night and average during the day is around -2. At the moment i don't want to spend any money on a cooling/ heating system for the fermenter.
My low tech and cheap approach is to use bubble wrap and Duct tape to insulate and stick a 20W wine heater plate to the sloping side of the conical. I know it doesn't look great but with the three layers of bubble wrap and the duct tape there is no heat loss outwards, it all goes inwards into the beer
(all magnificent 20 watts of it)!
I then add 5 layers of blankets and sheets to insulate the whole fermenter. I know this doesn't seem much in the face of the temperatures here but it has kept the beer at 10 degrees for the past week!
I checked a sample of the beer this afternoon and it is down 20 points on the O.G, this will be a long slow ferment. I carried out some tests last year and US-05 yeast will continue to ferment out a beer at 6 degrees C. I am interested to hear if any of you have had sucess at low temperatures with US-05?
Today is also the day for the beginning of the dry hopping.
Minus the packaging we have 1.5 Oz of Simcoe hops and 1oz of Amarillo hops for dry hopping. I am using glass marbles(1/2 lb) to weigh down the hops. The bag, marbles and plastic string were boiled for 10 minutes to sterilise before adding to the fermentation vessel. They will be in the FV for the next 2 weeks.
I also dumped 400ml's of dross out of the bottom of the FV and will continue to do so as the fermentation progresses. This facility to remove heavy dead matter from the beer as it ferments is one fo the great bonuses of fermenting in a conical.
So there we have it people. A mid brew progress report on an unclassified beer.
Looks like a stout.
Has the body(nearly) of a Porter.
Mouthfeel North of an IPA but South of a Stout.
Brewed with Belgian Candi Sugar & Orange peel (How Whit is that)?
Bitterness levels of an IPA
Fermented at lagerring temperatures with an ale yeast.
Dryhopped with American West Coast Hops.
Will be carbonated at upwards of Ale levels.
Head retention of a German Whit.
That should be just about my perfect beer(if it all works), what's yours and why aren't you making it or planning it right now? :)
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