Ergh....

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brad81

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Location
Palmerston, ACT
Hey all.

Friday was a shit of a day, but slugged on through and got away to the olds for my sisters birthday.

I got home Friday afternoon and I thought I'd check the fridge to see how my first lager was chugging along. Glad I did. Opened the shed door, and saw the readout of 28.6 on the STC, tickle my tollywodger I thought. Immediately, I plugged the fridge into the power, bypassing the STC. Fridge is stuffed. Fired up the fridge the landlord had left behind, cranked it to cold. I thought I'd try use the STC in case that survived the electrical shenanigans in the shed, and had no luck. I bunged the lager in there before barreling out the door.

Got back today (Sunday) opened the fridge up (supposedly working mind you) and it was like ISP Support line, it's making all the right noises, but actually doing **** all. Sitting at 30deg according to my fancy ALDI fridge thermometer. So I chuck a couple of paint tins into my kegorater to even out the hump (Heller bar fridge) and slide the now warm lager into the bar fridge and again crank it to cold. Will monitor and tweak over the next few days to return it to 12deg.

I pulled apart the STC housing tonight to see if there is anything significant eg: burns to see if I could reseat anything and it all appears to be well. The heating component works as it should, but the cold is definitely out. Has anyone had the misfortune of having one part of the STC unit fail, and then successfully resurrect it?

In addition to this, is my lager screwed? It was bubbling away nicely at 12deg for 4 days before rising in temp (~30deg), and that high temp was maintained for 60ish hours.

Anyway, hope you all had a great weekend and are ready for work tomorrow.

PS - I have tomorrow off.
 
Have you taken a SG reading yet (or two) to make sure the yeast is still alive and doing it's thing?

You might need to condition it for a bit longer, you might have some off tastes for a while. I've read stories similar to yours and the yeast did clean the off tastes up eventually, but it took a while (think months not weeks)
 
Any idea how far through ferment you were (what the sg was) when the incident happened?

As mentioned, if you were already 3/4s through or more, you could consider it a d-rest, and you might end up fine.
 
I'll give the readings a go over the next few days and see how it looks. I'll do it once the temp is again stable.

Cheers guys
 
Well, took a sample this morning, it's at 1010 from 1040. Smells good, passed on the taste test though.

Considering there's still another 2 weeks lagering minimum, can anyone give me a reason to not agitate the yeast to try bring this down further?

Cheers,

Brad
 
What yeast did you use?
 
Well, left it alone to do it's thing and tonight I minkegged it. From 1040 to 1007 over the course of 4 weeks. Had a taste from the hydro tube and I am impressed.

Was surprised to see so much trub in the fermenter though, netted 21.5L and lost 3.5L.

I'll give it another 2 weeks conditioning, and if it is good, will definitely crank out that unintentional diacetyl rest next time!!
 
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