Home Brewing

I will admit swing top bottles are the best, they will auto release any over pressure, I have a few glass bottles with swing tops, as yet not used, but with pop bottles one can squeeze the bottle and get an idea if going over pressure without needed to release pressure.

I found with old fridge which I had intended to use in same way as box you have built, ambient temperature needed to be lower than 10°C not to over heat on start, I did consider leaving door of fridge open for first few days, but how to monitor was a problem.

So by monitoring power used by heat plate I know 25 watt when full on so if under 25 watt it is switching off/on so warm enough, but I do not watch the fermenter so it is hard to know if it over heats other than a zero power use.

It does not heat up fast, so set to 19°C with max of around 24°C before the brew becomes very bitter with an after taste, in the main it is OK, but only 100% method involves cooling.

However if it does over heat, then storing for a long time does improve the taste and get rid of a lot of the after taste. However what I want is set up and forget, I want to do the transfer, bottling etc when I have free time, not when the hydrometer says I should, and with the energy monitor I was able to check my brew even when in hospital. Not that I could have done anything if it went wrong.

 

Nice! My garage stays very cool so I might get away with a heat-only setup like the insulated box idea.

 

That is what I thought, but the brewing produces heat, so in early stages heat needs to escape, the idea had been to use the old fridge/freezer as a ready made insulated box, but the insulation was too good.

So a towel around the fermenter in the kitchen worked better than the old fridge/freezer in garage.

What I have realised is the fermenter is about same diameter as my body, so a body warmer or coat works fine, the air lock can stick out of the neck, and it is not too good to stop cooling in early stages, and the 25 watt pad it sits on is enough in the old unheated garage to maintain the temperature.

I use an energy meter so can check from PC, and as long as it is switching off/on I know the thermostat is holding heat set, if stays off then likely getting too warm, if stays on then too cold but is alternating on/off then OK. It has a towel around it, really should show square wave but soft ware smooths off corners.

 

I used an old electric blanket to heat a 5 gallon barrel of home brew.
It worked a treat.

 

When I started I used the kitchen, and used stick on thermometers, the problem was over night central heating was off, and yeast stalls at around 18°C. So down to time of year. I tried to experiment, and that included varying around with amount of sugar, at a point there was a bitter after taste, but the point where one noticed that bitter after taste varied, and I realised three things varied the point where this after taste was noticed.
1) Brew temperature
2) Amount of sugar
3) Conditioning time
And it seemed brew temperature was most affecting the end result in the first 4 days. As long as in first 4 days the temperature is kept low, around 19 to 20°C after that the temperature can rise to 24°C without problem, in fact at 24°C conditioning seems to work better.