I haven't read a book on the actual brewing process itself yet. I get all of my information online. The twoplustwo of home brewing is homebrewtalk.com. There is a ton of information there waiting to be taken in and used. From what I have read there and heard from other brewers if you are to read a book This Is The One.

I prefer Palmer's How To Brew to Papazian's homebrewing books, but that may just be me. Getting started brewing is super easy and either will suffice.

I plugged in my chest freezer last night in anticipation of brewing the kolsch today but apparantly it bit the dust. The compressor runs but doesn't chill. I've got the kolsch mashing now anyway and will have to try the swamp cooler route for this batch.

The APA I made on Saturday still isn't bubbling yet. Gonna give it 2 more days before I repitch. Sounds about right yeah?

Are you using a carboy or a bucket? If a bucket it's possible you don't have a good seal and it's fermenting but the gas is getting out some way other than the airlock. I would take a peak inside and see if you have any krausen.

Otherwise I would start to get a bit nervous at this point. I've never had a lag longer than 24 hours. If liquid, did you make a starter? If dry, did you rehydrate?

Ok, so i just relocated from Hawaii to the UK (Glasgow). For the Brits or others who know, what are the good beers to try over here?

I got to be a big fan of the west coast style IPA's in the US so I'm concerned i won't find anything like that. Tried a few beers from Tesco the other day but only the Brewdog Punk IPA was close to anything I'd often buy again. I still wished it was hoppier and just ....more... Are they just stingier with hops in the UK?

What say ye? ...and where do you source good craft beers here?

Any good stouts/imperial stouts to recommend?

It's a glass carboy. There's a bit of krausen, but not at the top about 80% up the carboy. There's also a bunch of yeasties on the bottom. IDK if it fermented really quickly and I missed it or what...I'm going to take a sample and measure the gravity and go from there I reckon.

Which strain of yeast? What where your pitching and ferm temps?

I would guess for it to be done in only a few days with one of the common strains used for APA's the temp would have to have been too high.

My APA using US-05 takes about 2 weeks to reach terminal but I ferment it at 58 to 60 f.

It was Wyeast 1272 and pitched between 80-85.

Ferments ~72-76.

Can you take gravity readings?

Yup, gonna do that soonish.

He gave one lecture during the conference that I attended. Interesting speaker. It was not the hefe class though, I believe it was the brewing and developing recipes for competition class.

Having difficulty determining how long to condition in the bottle before trying, seems I always try the first one too early. Don't have a way to chill the bottles in bulk (10 gallons of brew would take up too much of my refrigerator and I don't have a spare), so they condition at room temp, which probably doesn't help some styles. However, I'm giving the hefe and kolsch a week to 10 days. Need to go longer? Also, what are the effects of conditioning at room temp vs in a fridge??

That sounds very high too me. I don't have direct experience with that yeast but someone I trust very much at the Northern Brewer forums says he pitches 1272 at 63 and lets it rise to 68.

If you pitched at 80 to 85 it may have taken off like a rocket and fermented fast, but I suspect in a carboy you would see evidence that you had had a krausen with the remnants sticking to the sides.

As others have suggested, at this point its best to take a gravity reading.

For future batches I would try to pitch below your fermentation temp by a few degrees and let it rise up to your desired temp and then maybe bring it a little higher as fermentation slows to make sure it finishes.

Most of the undesirable yeast byproducts from high temps are produced early in the fermentation cycle so particularly in a clean style like an APA you want to start at or below your target temp and select a temp at the low end of the manufacturers suggested range. (I often ferment below the manufacturers recommendation.)

His book is great. So many books cover the same type of info but he really goes off with some interesting ideas and a different way of presenting it.

I keg so I'm not totally familiar with bottle conditioning but a lot of people recommend conditioning all styles at room temperature for 10 to 14 days.

Were you able to bulk cold-condition (lager) the Kolsch? If not once you have it carbed I would try to cold-condition it in the bottle 4 to 6 weeks. You will see a big difference in taste over that time.

I bulk cold-condition my kolsh at 35 degrees for 6 to 8 weeks and its a lot better at week 8 than it is at week 1.

FUUUUUUUUUUU, the answer was RIGHT IN THE POST I QUOTED. That's pretty bad, even for me.

Thanks. We were not able to lager the kolsch as my friend's freezer is big enough for 4-6 kegs and he's usually got all 6 taps going. I'll cold condition a few bottles at a time in my refrigerator and replace one as I drink one.

My friend was right though--bottling gets to be a pain after a while and I will soon wish I had a kegerator

Well, got home to a super active fermentation today.

I know I am *supposed* to pitch at lower temps Jbrochu, but the big problem is I don't have a fermentation chamber, and I live in Florida. The water from the ground is not going to drop into the 60's and I'd be surprised if it was lower than 75. I've also pitched all my yeasties around this temperature and been fine, just a slowwwww ferment time for some reason this time around.

I know I need to get a chamber going but just don't have the room/time atm.

I had the 2011 Stone IRS last night and was slightly underwhelmed. I don't know if I let the hype get to me but I wasn't blown away like I hoped to be. The mouthfeel threw me off a little bit, I would have preferred it to be a little more smooth and creamy. I have 2 more so I'll set them down and hope they get a little better with age.

Wraths, what do you do for aeration prior to pitching? Maybe a bit more shaking of the carboy or an aeration stone could cut down on your lag times. I actually use a wine degasser attached to my drill to aerate, I run it for about 3-5 minutes and I usually get fermetation to start in under 12 hours sometimes as fast as 4-6.

As for chilling the wort to proper pitching temps, if youre already using a wort chiller (coil) think about building another one maybe of the 25ft variety and using it as a pre chiller? So put the pre chiller in a bucket of ice and water connected to your hose, then the water out to the chiller thats in your kettle. I do something similar and can get to pitching temps super quick.

at my brewery I used to pitch around 70 all the time and ferment at 68 for ales. never a problem.

Bob at St. Somewhere pitches at city water temp (roughly the same as Wraths') and he does fine, too.

I strain/funnel when going from pot->carboy and that usually aerates it pretty well. I've looked into doing a pre-chill but it seems like it may be more trouble than it's worth.

I'm looking into getting a redbull/rockstar cooler they use for those events and converting it into a fermentor/kegerator. It seems a few people have done it successfully on HBT so hopefully I can as well.

I think there are plenty of ale yeasts where pitching and fermenting between 68 to 70 is fine. I'm not sure about your place, but lots of micro's seem to use one or two house strains for every style so if you pick one that's good in that range I'm sure it works out fine for everything.

But pitching between 80 to 85 defies all conventional wisdom for avoiding excessive ester production in the early stages of fermentation, particularly for a style like APA where you generally want a clean profile from the yeast.

Wrath used WY 1272 which has a suggested range of 60-72 and Wyeast recommends fermenting at the lower end of that range for a clean flavor profile.

I wasn't trying to be a dick to Wrath I was trying to offer a suggestion to improve his beer, as I wasn't sure if he was aware of how important pitching and ferm temps are to produce quality beer. He said recently he was new to this.

Even if he's making good beer now I am nearly certain the biggest bang for his buck to improve his current process would be a better chilling system and controlling ferm temps.

Edit: I just googled St Somewhere and it says they are a brewer of Belgian Ales. From what I understand, Belgian yeast strains are pretty much the exception to the rule regarding cool ferm temps. Some of those Belgian strains are fermented at up to 90 by the end of fermentation.

From what I understand the only detriments to pitching/fermenting at a higher temp as an excess amount of diacetyl which you can remove with a diacetyl rest? I thought excess esters came from under-pitching your yeast?

Fwiw I don't think you were being a dick, and I don't think mark was trying to imply that either.

I don't think he was implying I was being a dick either. I'm not sure why I even wrote that.

Pitching high can definetely cause excess exters and off flavors and aromas. It can also cause formation of fusel alcohols which cause hangovers and off flavors like that hot alcohol type taste. I'll try to post a good source in the next few days.

I've never heard of it causing diacetyl. Typically you do a diacetyl rest when you ferment cold - like a lager or altbier or kolsch. I believe all fermentations produce diacetyl (maybe some more than others idk) which the yeast will clean up when fermentation is winding down, but they cannot clean it up if the temps are too cold.

You bring the temperature up in order for the yeast to more effectively clean up the diacetyl. I believe they just absorb it into their cell membrane but not really sure. For most typical ale fermentations you wouldn't do a diacetyl rest.

This Podcast from the Brewing Network covers the importance of fermentation temps. Both of hosts are excellent brewers and authors. They have a ton of good podcasts in their archives for free.