My next batch of beer, a clone of Bell's Two-Hearted IPA, is done! The brewday went pretty well, aside from a narrowly-avoided boilover and the fact that I forgot to get ice to cool the wort down before I started. I had to run to the gas station across the road mid-boil to get two bags. No problems, though! In a few weeks, I'll transfer this beer to secondary, and add another oz. of hops to make it extra hoppy. This technique is called "dry hopping." I've never done it before, but I look forward to seeing how it turns out!
This really isn't what I wanted to talk about, though. I wanted to talk a little about my swamp cooler (hence the terrible Charlie Daniels reference in the title and video). I've tried a swamp cooler before with less-than-stellar results. But I think I've worked out all the kinks now. If I have, then this will be the key to getting great homebrew. So, what is a swamp cooler?
Basically, a swamp cooler is a tub of water in which you put the carboy while the beer is fermenting. Then, you can adjust the temperature of the water using ice. If it's really hot, you can take a t-shirt and drape it over the carboy so that the water is wicked up and evaporates, cooling it even more.
So, here's a picture of my carboy bubbling away in a swamp cooler.
As you can see, this fermentation is in full swing. The bottle in the back is what I'm using to cool it. Basically it's a two-liter coke bottle filled with water. I then froze it along with two other bottles so I can swap them out and keep the temperature low enough for the yeast to do its job without producing bad off flavors.
So far this system has been working. As you can see from this picture, the temperature of the carboy has been holding at a nice 68 degrees.
After I took this picture, I replaced the bottle, and the temperature went down another degree or so, but that's fine. It's better for it to be a little on the cold side anyway. For a little perspective, this yeast's optimal temperature is 60-72 with 66-68 really being the best. I've been fermenting close to (or past) the 72 mark. However, with the swamp cooler, I can keep it in that 66-68 range, making much better beer.
However, I do need to make sure I stay on top of this. I had a problem early on in the fermentation when the water got TOO cold. The carboy's temperature got down to about 56 and it stopped fermenting. Temperatures this low cause the yeast to go dormant. It's not that bad, and since it was so early in the stages of fermentation, it shouldn't hurt it. I just warmed it back up a little bit, and it took off like a rocket (as you can see in the pictures above).
Now I just have to keep rotating those bottles, maintaining a good temperature while it ferments. I'll let you know if I have any other hiccups. Also, I'll write another post going more in-depth about this style and the beer I'm cloning! Until then!
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