Cold Weather Brewing

[Jovial_Monk]

Exactly! Old fridges don't usually cost much.

They are a great boon to brewers, ferment and lager a lager at proper lager temps, cold condition all beers at nice cold temperatures etc

When hard rubbish is being collected, you often see a fridge sitting on the pavement ready to be collected!

Jovial Monk

 

[Hopeye]

God, I love Council Pick-ups here in Sydney.... Fridges, Dryers (motor for Grain Mill, drum for Keg Burner stand), Washing Machines (pumps, heater elements, clamps). All kinds of sh*t to help build a brury.

 

[evanroser]

Guys,
I am looking at brewing a wheat style beer (Leffe Blond). I have been told that i need to brew at around 25 to 27 degrees to bring out the flavour of the beer. I have a mashmaster temp controller and a fermentation fridge, however, i am struggling to keep it at temps this high. Short of buying a heating belt, does anyone have any suggestions.

Thanks

Pointy

 

[Stuster]

Leffe Blond is not really a wheat beer, it's a Belgian Blonde. You'll need to use a Belgian yeast for that. What yeast are you using?

 

[DJR]

You can do the opposite of the keep-cold trick by putting the fermenter into one of those k-mart 100 can coolers and swapping out some bottles filled with hot/warm water periodically which should keep the temps quite high -but it may not make much difference if you're not using the right yeast.

If you use the right yeast it alleviates the need to keep the temperature high to get the right ester profile, something like WLP500, WLP530 or WLP550 would be a good choice for a Leffe.

 

[Voosher]

The most reliable heating source I've used is a light globe. I've had one hooked up to a Jaycar thermostat for years and it's better than heatpads or heatbelts by a mile. I have mine set up in a heat box on which the fermenter sits inside the fridge so no problems with direct light either.
I'm sure it wouldn't be too hard to set something up so a light can be activated my the Fridgemate in heat mode.

 

[evanroser]

Leffe Blond is not really a wheat beer, it's a Belgian Blonde. You'll need to use a Belgian yeast for that. What yeast are you using?

G'day Voosher,
I haven't brewed it yet. The HBS recommended Muntons Connoissers Wheat Beer as the Base. I assumed (probably wrongly) that i would need to use K97?

Whilst on the topic, what temps do you recommend for a Wheat Beer??

Thanks

Pointy

 

[tangent]

i thought the K97 was spectacularly ordinary.
Buy a real Belgian ale liquid yeast.

 

[Weizguy]

2 tips from me:

1/ Search for the Fly-Blown Belgian recipe;
2/ Use S33 dry yeast as a cheap option.

I made a great Leffe Blond clone using that method, at ambient temp.

Beerz
Seth out

 

[Borret]

And I must confess that to my surprise it did have an essence of Leffe about it too.

Brent

 

[benno1973]

Not that I've tried it myself, but I've seen the following method used to warm things up in a fermenting fridge...

1. Buy a fishtank heater for tropical fish.
2. Put the heater in a pot of water and turn it on.
3. Stick this in the fermenting fridge.

The benefit of this is that you can dial up the required temperature (most fishtank thermometers have either a thermostat or at least provide some variable way to adjust how much heat is given off). Over the course of a day or two, the temperature in the fridge and pot of water reaches an equilibrium. Not a bad way to achieve the required temps for an ale in the middle of winter, and a fairly cheap option as most heaters cost somewhere around $30-40. If you don't have a fermenting fridge, you could try sitting your fermenter in a warm water batch with the heater keeping a constant temperature?

 

[Voosher]

Leffe Blond is not really a wheat beer, it's a Belgian Blonde. You'll need to use a Belgian yeast for that. What yeast are you using?

G'day Voosher,
I haven't brewed it yet. The HBS recommended Muntons Connoissers Wheat Beer as the Base. I assumed (probably wrongly) that i would need to use K97?

Whilst on the topic, what temps do you recommend for a Wheat Beer??

Thanks

Pointy

That was Stuster, but G'day anyway.
Temps depend on the yeast.
By way of example have a quick squiz at the Wyeast page:Yeast specs link

When you decide what yeast you're using then you can determine optimum fermentation temps.

 

[warrenlw63]

This is something I've just finished putting together.

It's an old wooden cabinet lined with styro panels. I've added a ceramic light socket with a 60w infra-red reptile bulb. This is connected to a fridgemate temperature controller.

It will fly it's maiden voyage tomorrow when I pitch the yeast to my Saison and ramp the temp from 25 to 30 degrees over a period of a few days. So far it's managed to hold 30 degrees effortlessly with nothing in it.

I've also attached a small computer fan to the ceiling to try and create some warm air currents to flow around the cabinet. This will be great for starters, puffing up Wyeast packets and Winter brewing in general. :beerbang:

If it all goes pear shaped I can always breed lizards. Which would make my daughter happy 'cause she loves Bearded Dragons. :lol:

Warren -

 

[evanroser]

Leffe Blond is not really a wheat beer, it's a Belgian Blonde. You'll need to use a Belgian yeast for that. What yeast are you using?

G'day Voosher,
I haven't brewed it yet. The HBS recommended Muntons Connoissers Wheat Beer as the Base. I assumed (probably wrongly) that i would need to use K97?

Whilst on the topic, what temps do you recommend for a Wheat Beer??

Thanks

Pointy

That was Stuster, but G'day anyway.
Temps depend on the yeast.
By way of example have a quick squiz at the Wyeast page:Yeast specs link

When you decide what yeast you're using then you can determine optimum fermentation temps.

Thanks Voosher, sorry i got the posts mixed up. By the looks of it i might be able to get away with 20-22 degrees if i use the right yeast.

Thanks

Pointy

 

[therook]

Wazza,

Were did u get the styro from?

I had a brown snake in my driveway on Monday, i should have caught it and sent it down for your daughter


rook

 

[warrenlw63]

:lol: :lol: Scrounged it from Clark Rubber Rook. Cost about $5 all up. Quality of sheets was "less than perfect" so I basically haggled them down.

As for the snake? No thanks. My daughter OTOH would have other ideas. :blink:

Warren -

 

[Stuster]

If it all goes pear shaped I can always breed lizards. Which would make my daughter happy 'cause she loves Bearded Dragons. :lol:

Warren -

Be careful there, Warren. Drugs and reptiles don't mix. Remember Fear and Loathing. :lol:

 

[newguy]

Sorry if anyone has suggested this before, but you can buy controller units that will run in cool (to run a fridge) or heat (to run a heater) mode. Here's one: BBMB Site

Only issue is that you'll probably have to get some sort of adapter because I'm pretty sure this unit is meant for 120V (north america).

 

[warrenlw63]

If it all goes pear shaped I can always breed lizards. Which would make my daughter happy 'cause she loves Bearded Dragons. :lol:

Warren -

Be careful there, Warren. Drugs and reptiles don't mix. Remember Fear and Loathing. :lol:

:lol: The red light may attract an undesirable element too.

Warren -

 

[PostModern]

Not that I've tried it myself, but I've seen the following method used to warm things up in a fermenting fridge...

1. Buy a fishtank heater for tropical fish.
2. Put the heater in a pot of water and turn it on.
3. Stick this in the fermenting fridge.

The benefit of this is that you can dial up the required temperature (most fishtank thermometers have either a thermostat or at least provide some variable way to adjust how much heat is given off). Over the course of a day or two, the temperature in the fridge and pot of water reaches an equilibrium. Not a bad way to achieve the required temps for an ale in the middle of winter, and a fairly cheap option as most heaters cost somewhere around $30-40. If you don't have a fermenting fridge, you could try sitting your fermenter in a warm water batch with the heater keeping a constant temperature?

Thanks for that idea. I've been swapping bottles of hot water trying to get my current ale batch up from 15C.
I've got a spare tank heater too. *Slaps forehead*