Dumb brewer trick (or hot day brewing)
With the new fridge I now have a spare fridge for fermenting so brewing during the hot weather is now possible. Brewed a stout on Saturday when it was only 38C on the back verandah.
I kegged the ale during the mash and decided to pitch onto the yeast cake - normally not a problem.
Ran the wort off through the wort chiller and decided to save the water by putting it on the garden via some sprinklers - mistake. The back pressure meant the cooling water flow was way less than I thought and becasue it was so hot when I checked the temp of the wort coming out I thought it was cool enough and that the sticky thermometer on the CWC outlet was lying when it said 28-30C (picking up the high ambient thought I).
When I put the fermenter in the fridge with the thermocouple strapped on it said 29C - shit. Fridge on flat out didn't pull it down quick enough and the ferment went balistic overnight before I got it down to 22 or so. 5 or more litres of wort, yeast etc out the air lock and lord knows what impact on the flavour (fusels anyone).
Time will tell and a leason learned.