so the other day i recieved my classic beer styles recipes book by jamil and john. brewing beer is all about temperature control and sanitation. this being said, i have begun to realize, a.) i need to come up with a quick efficient way to sanitize, and b.) i need a fridge for fermentation.
the first issue, sanitation, i believe is quite easily taken care of. when i brew and bottle i have decided that i am not gonna skimp on sanitizer. i am going to use five gallons everytime. this will give me eight brew and eight bottling sessions. that will last me a little while. i may even be able to get twice that, using only 2.5 gallons per session. Before i brew i will mix my solution in my carboy and leave it. this way it will be available and ready for the rest of the session. i wont have to worry about where its coming from or if i made it or not. it will just be there on hand, waiting. also, i will know my carboy is nice and sanitized and ready to go. i also am going to procure a wide shallow vessel. the rubbermaid storage bins come to mind. i can fill this with sanitizer and have room for all the various tubbing and miscelaneous brew equipment that is generally a pain in the ass to keep track of. if i have one spot that everything fits nicely into with a nice depth of sanitizer over it all i think this will cut back on stress and hassle, freeing up my mind to wander around aimlessly in a beer day dream. other brewers i know swear by wallpaper trays for this purpose. they are a few inches deep and three or feet long and about six inches wide (they fit a roll of wallpaper). perfect for the brewing clutter neccesary to make good brew.
just an aside: a buddy of mine had a suggestion for the wort cooling process. he said, "why not just create a closed sytem for the water being used in the wort chiller?" the idea being, to save water. instead of using a hundred gallons- at least- of water from the tap and an inordinant amount of time trying to cool the wort (vegas water comes out of the tap at 80 degrees + in the summer), just use five gallons of water with ice and recirculate via a cheap drill powered pump. intitial and limited debate argued that the wort was too hot and the ice would pretty much immediatly melt off and the purpose of the closed system would be negated.
not convinced by this argument and after confering with my assistant brewer, it was decided the best way to deal with this was to just have plenty of ice on hand. a quick trip to the gas station for a couple of tall boys rendered us confident with 80 lbs. it shall be noted that our idea worked beautifully. the water did intitially warm quite quickly even with 20 pounds of ice. we drained off the excess water and added another twenty pounds. the lower the temperture falls, the faster it falls which is nice. it does take a few minutes for the tempurature to drop but once it does it goes fast. we did not time the wort cooling process, but i am guessing it took 20 minutes TOPS to get to 70 degrees (with my crappy home made immersion chiller). it took 40 pounds of ice and four or five gallons of water. i would call this success. the pump cost 10 dollars at home depot, 16 at ace hardware. i bought it at ace because i like to support local business.
but that aside, back to the second issue of my brewing journey, the need for a fridge to maintain temperature during fermentation. this issue cannot be over looked. period. it is not cost efficient or even really that comfortable to try and maintain a sub 70 degree environment during fermentation for ales. and lagers? forget about it. sub 50 degrees farenheit is all but impossible to maintain and insanely uncomfortable. the only way to combat this issue is to get myself a refrigerator specifically for fermenting homebrew. some may call this extreme, i call it attention to detail. its not like a full size fridge is needed either. all one needs is enough room to fit a fermentation vessel and its related apparatus. i guess i have my work cut out for me then. craigs list, here i come. with all the foreclosures and such i think it would be easy to find a fridge for very cheap, if not free.
ahh beer, truly the nectar of the gods. hopefully i wont fly too close to the sun.
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