Good Morning everybody, and Happy New Year.
I just brewed my second batch yesterday, and I checked on it this morning - happily fermenting away, but I did notice a brown-ish blob on the top of all the foam. I can’t remember if I saw this on my first batch or not, so I’m not sure if it’s an infection or just some of the yeast still hanging out. I figured I’d ask the experts. There’s a pic attached.
It’s a 1-gallon batch of American Wheat.
Looks pretty normal to me
Yeah this looks normal. I wouldn’t be worried.
Right on. Thanks folks. It’s amazing how straight-forward small batch brewing seems to be, until you actually start doing it. There’s something new I learn each time. Like, for instance, even though it’s -9F outside temperature on brew-day, simply placing your kettle outside will not be an effective way of cooling it!
Wow! Where do you live?
+1 for looks normal
[quote=“Dimik”]Wow! Where do you live?[/quote]Suburb of Minneapolis. It’s pretty cool because there’s an NB retail location on the way home from work!
Oh I see. I went there in Jan 2000 and the temperature sounds about right.
At least the water in the immersion chiller will do its work quickly when you get to doing it that way.
[quote=“Dimik”]Oh I see. I went there in Jan 2000 and the temperature sounds about right.
At least the water in the immersion chiller will do its work quickly when you get to doing it that way.[/quote]Indeed. I set my kettle on my patio (I live on the 5th floor of an apartment complex) and the temp of the wort just would not drop. So I eventually took the elevator down to the bottom floor and stuck it in the snow. That worked!
I tried the same thing with my first ever brew and it was in a cold spell of -10 to -20 weather, which is the coldest it had been in quite a while. I kept moving it to different spots of snow. Using an ice bath is much quicker. It was a lager (only one of those I’ve ever done) and the lagering temperature was supposed to be 35-45 degrees. I have a fridge out in the garage that would have normally been perfect for the lagering, but I couldn’t keep it warm enough with the weather outside even though the garage is insulated. I worked around this by opening the fridge door slightly so the light would be on and putting a towel around the door until it would heat up to 45 or so. Then I’d put the carboy in there for a couple days until the fridge was close to freezing. Rinse and repeat.
