Greg Wigham's Comments

Yeah, thanks, I've got two entries.
Have a safe trip.

you will come around someday. yeah, I still can't make it to the home brew fest. I will be driving back from Florida during the fest, but, I will probably be txting Chris to get updates. Are you entering? And if so, good luck.

I have fermented a lager in the chamber. I change four 2 or 3 liter ice bottles at a time. Seem to work pretty good. Lager fement at 55 degrees. I have a chest freezer that I would lager in, but, don't do many lagers. I have only made lagers in the fall and winter in basement where temp ranges from 58-63.

Stop by Brewerie this Sunday..I'll be brewing our Belfast Black. Bring some more beer for me to try :)

Duvel is a good friend when you are cleaning your house. Had a nice pillowy head the whole way down. Used to be one of my favorites but there is too much pilsner cripness in it. For the fermentation chamber I got a two stage Ranco controller from Morebeer.com and wired it myself. It can be used for both heating and cooling at the same time, however, not usually needed. What I do is put the probe in contact with the bucket or carboy and place a piece of foam over it and tape it to the carboy. It will monitor the temp of the fluid instead of the ambient air in the chamber.

So you are saying that I haven't aged, my avatar is my 1st grade school picture. Ask as many questions as you want, I don't mind at all 'cause I don't get to talk homebrewing very much. I am very happy with the fermentation chiller. My last DIY project was a portable pump like the one in a recent issue of Brew Your Own magazine. Just about to rack my saison to secondary and add a Brett that was isolated from my "terroir".

I think I just made the connection that I was talking with you at U pick 6 last thursday. I was going thru my old brewing stuff and saw the list from last years Brewer's Cup and I remember you said that you had an Irish red entered.

Really depends on the situation. If trying to restrain the yeast I will start low in the range and check gravity. If more fermentation is needed, I will bump up the temp without much worry of significant increase in yeast character since most of the yeast flavor takes place during the first few days of fermentation. For Belgians (my favorite styles to brew) I will go high. I have gone as high as 85 degrees for a golden strong I brewed.

Why yes it is a temp control chamber. It uses frozen 2 liters and a computer fan for cooling and currently a heating pad for... well heating. Planning on adding FlexWatt for heating. Its not my design but I did tweak some measurements. It is based of "son of a fermentation chiller". My assistant brewer and his father welded my the stand. I just gave the specs. I actually had to dig deep into high school Trigonometry for the angles. I brew in my head about every hour but only actually do it about 6 times per year.