Winter brewing

Posted:
Fri May 13, 2011 5:43 pm
by mixy
Gday Gday can any one tell me what changes to look out for threw winter with my fermentation so far its slowed down it sits at 20-25 deg i dont wont to lose a batch any advise
Winter brewing

Posted:
Fri May 13, 2011 11:39 pm
by Capt-Cudellez
You could just live with a slower ferment, won’t do any harm as far as I know.
If you’re looking to maintain the temp you have a few options I can think of.
If you have the space, you could build an insulated plywood box, with just a lightbulb as the heat source (not a florescent).
You could try a molasses wash, pints fast fermenting molasses wash from the AD website is warm to the touch, and does well at low temps.
Or something I have found recently, I’ve found by re-pitching the lees from the last wash in to the next one (assuming your doing the same wash again), the huge amount of yeast works off really fast. My sugar wash that normally takes around 4-5 days, I’ve found by doing this I can ferment it dry in about 50 hours.
Or just wrapping a sleeping bag round the fermenter is also effective at keeping the heat the ferment generates in.