Brew #58: American Brown Ale

I have always enjoyed the impressively rich and malty beers from American microbreweries. I've so far only found that kind of malt flavours in American beers. Some of them have an incredible maltiness. I have so far not been able to get even close in my own beers. This beer is hopefully a step towards something more resembling. There is a whopping 21% specialty malts in this recipe, of which most of them are very aromatic and flavourful malts. Lets just hope that is doesn't come out too cloying. There is also a bit of bittering hops in there to cut some of the sweetness. The mashing efficiency came out a little low this time. Not sure why. It could of course have something to do with the specialty malts.

I have not found any information on the attenuation of the Fat Tire yeast, but Brew #57 came out at 80%, so it is pretty high.

The batch was brewed 2008-04-13.

Style:
American Brown Ale
Type:
25 liters. All grain, batch sparge
Colour:
44 EBC (Dark brown)
Bitterness:
36 IBU
Malts:
3000g Maris Otter malt, Thomas Fawcett
2300g Münchener malt
500g Biscuit malt, Dingemans
300g Aromatic malt, Dingemans
300g Special B, Dingemans
200g Dark Crystal malt 300 EBC, Thomas Fawcett
100g Pale Chocolate, Thomas Fawcett
Mash:
66C, 60 min
69% efficiency
Hops:
65g Cascade pellets, 5.8%, 60 min
30g Styrian Goldings pellets, 3.2%, 10 min
Yeast:
Wyeast Fat Tire yeast, on Brew #57's yeast cake
Boil:
90 min
Fermentation:
19 C

OG: 1.056 FG: 1.013 abv: 5.6%

Brew #57: American Pale Ale

This is the first brew of the year, an American Pale ale. It actually ended up more like an India Pale ale as the mash efficency came out at 78%, something I'm really happy about. I used a new batch sparging technique, which I'll say something about in a future post.

The batch was brewed 2008-03-27.

Style:
American Pale Ale
Type:
25 liters. All grain, batch sparge
Colour:
15 EBC (Amber)
Bitterness:
40 IBU
Malts:
5400g Maris Otter malt, Thomas Fawcett
270g Crystal malt 80 EBC, Dingemans
230g Caraamber, Weyermann
200g Biscuit malt, Dingemans
Mash:
66C, 60 min
78% efficiency
Hops:
30g Simcoe whole, 13.2%, 60 min
30g Cascade pellets, 5.8%, 10 min
60g Cascade pellets, 5.8%, 1 min
Yeast:
Wyeast Fat Tire yeast, 2.7 liter starter on magnetic stirrer
Boil:
90 min
Fermentation:
19 C

OG: 1.060 FG: 1.012 abv: 6.3%

Norwegian Homebrew Competition 2008

What: The annual festival where homebrewers serve their own beers to the public, which get to vote for their favourite beers of the evening. Homebrewers also compete in five other categories (bottled entries submitted earlier). The winners are announced towards the end of the evening.

When: Saturday April 5th 2008, 19:00-00:30 CET
Where: Studentersamfunnet Bislet, Pilestredet 52, Oslo, Norway.
Cost: 130 NOK (100 NOK if you're a member of Norbrygg)


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I'll be there, but I won't be serving any beers this year as I'm judging the finals of the five other competition categories (light lager, dark lager, light ale, dark ale and strong beers). For the same reason I won't be able to partake in any of the competitions either (doh).

A brewing tip from Norway's Julia Child

"Kjøkkentips", a book by Ingrid Espelid Hovig and Scott Givot contains a lot of practical tips about doing smart things in your kitchen. One of the tips that caught my eye that might be useful to brewers is how one can cool down a pot of hot liquid in the sink. They say that if you place a spoon upside down beneath the pot that would allow it too cool down quicker. Simple, and just brilliant, as this would expose the pot to more surface. If you chill your hot wort in the sink then this might help you cool down your wort faster.

Getting the temperature right

You may remember that I have had some issues with mashing at too low a temperature. Because the beers were mashed too low they were thin bodied as this produced more fermentable sugars. I recently bought a new thermometer (the one on the right), and that helped a little. The recent beers have had more body, but the doppelbock I brewed just before Christmas still was a little thinner than expected. It meant that I still had some problems with the mash temperatures.

Interestingly, I was offered to have my thermometers calibrated at a local brewery using professional calibration equipment. That was exactly what I needed as this would let me know exactly by how much the thermometers were off.


The temperature calibrator system that was used was a Tek Know TC2000 from Scan-Sense. The results from calibrating the two thermometers at 55C, 65C, 70C and 80C can be seen below. Click the thumbnails to see the full-sized photos.



The digital thermometer on the right is clearly the most exact of the two as its readings are the most consistent, but they are still off by 1.5C or so. It was this thermometer that I used for the last few brews, so the dobbelbock was mashed at 67.5C instead of 69C. The old white digital thermometer (now broken) must have been off by at least 3.5C as it read 2C lower than the new one. That is a quite significant difference.

In all this is very useful information to me and it will allow me to hit the mash temperatures much more precisely than before. If you have doubts about the readings from your thermometer then having it calibrated is much recommended. Even small variances on the readings in the mashing range can lead to significant differences in fermentability.

Ulrikke

Eight weeks ago Kristiane and I adopted Ulrikke, a beautiful 23 months old girl from Guangdong, China. This has worked out very well and we're now a happy family of three. I have spent the last six weeks on paternity leave, so things have been busy. Things have settled down nicely, so I should now have more time to spend on my brewing efforts. Not to mention that I now have a brewing assistant. :)

Is homebrewing beer legal?

Adam recently discussed the U.S federal limits on home brewing on his Beer Bits 2 blog, and I thought that it might be interesting to compare this with the legislation here in Norway. I have had several inquiries about the laws here in Norway, so this might be useful information for more people.

Up until July 1999 home brewing was illegal in Norway, unless you malted your own grains. Of course, malting is out of reach for most amateur brewers, so they brewed at home anyway. There is a page at the Norwegian Homebrewer's Association (which was started in 1997) site that has some detail about the recent changes. It is also worth mentioning that there were no such restrictions regarding making your own wine at home. Growing your own grapes might have been an option, but it's rather difficult this far north. Interestingly, there is one single winery in Norway making red wines, but that is besides the point.

Anyway, since 1999 it has been legal to brew beer at home without unreasonable restrictions. As far as I know there are no limits on how much you can brew either. As distillation or using various techniques to increase alcohol content, other than fermentation, is illegal one has to rely on fermentation alone, which is fair enough as most beers are made that way.

The current legislation is pretty straightforward: you can make as much beer as you like at home, and you can serve it to anyone you like, but you cannot sell it. You can even let someone with a license serve it, but they will then have to pay the associated taxes (including taxes on alcohol and VAT, and probably some more).

The home brewing legislation in Norway is surprisingly liberal given that alcohol is otherwise heavily taxed and is strictly regulated.

My own beer production has been 405 liters this year, which is a personal record. I guess it will be standing for a while, as we're getting our first child soon, and the brewing frequency will be reduced for obvious reasons.

Brew #56: Doppelbock

I kegged the German Pilsener today, and since I had a fresh and healthy yeast cake in the fermenter this was a perfect opportunity for brewing a strong doppelbock for the spring. The recipe should hopefully result in a rich and malty bock. I mashed quite high, so there should be lots of complex non-fermentable sugars. Interestingly the mash efficiency seems to have increased. I'll leave this in the fermenter for about three weeks.

The batch was brewed 2007-12-20.

Style:
Doppelbock
Type:
25 liters. All grain, batch sparge
Colour:
45 EBC (Brown)
Bitterness:
26 IBU
Malts:
6000g Münchener malt
1500g Vienna malt
350g Carapils
350g Caravienna
350g Dark crystal malt
100g Chocolate malt
Mash:
69C, 60 min
76C, 10 min (mashout)
76% efficiency
Hops:
70g Spalter Select pellets, 4.5%, 60 min
30g Spalter Select pellets, 4.5%, 10 min
Yeast:
Wyeast 2206 Bavarian Lager, on Brew #55's yeast cake
Boil:
90 min
Fermentation:
In the fridge at 9.0 to 10.5 C.

OG: 1.078 FG: 1.021 abv: 7.5%

Brew #55: German Pilsener

This is a straightforward simple pilsener with hopefully quite a bit of hop flavour and aroma. I just realize that I forgot to add the sulphates required to enhance the hop crispness. Not sure how much it'll matter as I'm sure it'll be fine anyway.

I added a little specialty malts to increase the malt complexity somewhat.

The plan is to brew a doppelbock in about two weeks that I then rack on top of the yeast cake from the pilsener. The Bavarian lager yeast is supposed to be very well suited for rich and malty lagers. Pitching on top of the yeast cake from another batch is a nice way to make sure that one has enough yeast for a healthy fermentation. That is important for strong lagers like doppelbocks.

The batch was brewed 2007-11-29.

Style:
German Pilsener
Type:
25 liters. All grain, batch sparge
Colour:
11 EBC (Golden)
Bitterness:
32 IBU
Malts:
5800g Pilsener malt
150g Carapils
150g Aroma malt
Mash:
64C, 60 min
76C, 10 min (mashout)
66% efficiency
Hops:
20g Warrior pellets, 13.8%, 60 min
40g Hallertauer Mittelfrüh whole, 3.8%, 10 min
60g Hallertauer Mittelfrüh whole, 3.8%, 1 min
Yeast:
Wyeast 2206 Bavarian Lager, 2 packs, production date 2007-04-30, 2.5 liter starter on stir plate
Boil:
90 min
Fermentation:
In the fridge at 9.0 to 10.5 C.

OG: 1.048 FG: 1.011 abv: 4.8%

Magnetic Stir Plate

This is one of the better brewing investments I've made in the last year. The magnetic stir plate is very good at kick-starting the beer yeast. I typically create 2 liter yeast starters from a single pack of liquid yeast.

I have three erlenmeyer flasks, in 1 liter, 3 liter and 5 liter sizes. The 3 liter one can be seen in the photo above.

Creating the yeast starter is straightforward: Fill the flask with water from the tap. Put it on the stove, turn on the heat and wait until the water heats up. Then add 1 tablespoon of dried malt extract per dl of water. Then add 1/2 teaspoon of yeast nutrient. Stir well and let it boil for about five minutes in the erlenmeyer flasks. This makes sure that both the yeast starter and the flask is properly disinfected. Cover the opening of the flask with aluminum foil or plastic wrap to prevent things from falling into the pristine wort. Cool it down to about 20 degrees C in a cold water bath before adding the yeast. Then spray the scissors and the opening of the yeast pack with a strong alcohol solution to make sure that no bacteria gets in contact with the yeast on its way to the yeast starter. Wait for the alcohol to evaporate before opening and pouring the yeast into the erlenmeyer flask. Finally, add the stir bar (make sure that it is disinfected) and put it on the magnetic stirrer. The stirring will provide the yeast with lots of oxygen.

It usually take a day or two before the yeast has fermented out the yeast starter.

Brew #54: Christmas Ale

Inspired by the upcoming season I've decided to make a strong and malty brew with a subtle hint of spices. This brew should be a nice sipping beer for Christmas. I suspect that it'll end up similar to an English Old Ale because of the muscovado sugar.

The yeast pack was smacked on Sunday and it had not really expanded fully when I made the starter wort on Tuesday evening. Anyway, after about 12 hours there were lots of activity on the magnetic stir plate. The yeast is known for its impressive capability of flocculating. After the fermentation was over large clumps of yeast where spinning around the erlenmeyer flask. When the stir plate stopped all yeast fell straight down to the bottom. Kind of cool, but I hope it ferments out my beer before deciding to clump together in the bucket.

The batch was brewed 2007-11-15.

Style:
English Old Ale
Type:
25 liters. All grain, batch sparge
Colour:
63 EBC (Dark brown)
Bitterness:
30 IBU
Malts:
4000g Pale malt
1400g Amber malt
1000g Rauchmalz
830g Münchener malt
400g Crystal malt
300g Dark crystal malt
300g Special B
100g Pale chocolate malt
Sugars:
500g Billington's Unrefined Dark Muscovado Cane Sugar
Spices:
6 cm cinnamon bark
1 small vanilla bean
Mash:
68C, 60 min
76C, 10 min (mashout)
72% efficiency
Hops:
40g Northern Brewer pellets, 10.0%, 60 min
30g Saaz pellets, 2.0%, 10 min
Yeast:
Wyeast 1968 London ESB Ale Yeast, production date 2007-04-30, 2 liter starter on stir plate
Boil:
90 min
Water treatment:
2 ts calcium carbonate
1/2 ts calcium chloride
OG: 1.081 FG: 1.024 abv: 7.5%

The Hop Stopper

One of the gadgets I got for my new brewery is The Hop Stopper. It is quite nice, but I have had some problems with it. It is being advertised as being able to remove both whole and pellet hops. Unfortunately it does not work very well with pellet hops when using an impeller pump. I'm sure it would work better with a different kind of pump though.


As you can see from the photo above the mesh is very fine and stops even the tiny fragments of hop pellets. This means that the hop pellet debris ends up as a thick layer all around the hop stopper restricting the flow of the wort.

Both of the times I have used it has clogged and has been almost impossible to get any wort out of the kettle, mainly because the impeller pump does not create a suction. I was lucky and in the end able to get most of the wort out by various means, but I had to leave a lot of it in the brewpot as it was impossible to get out the rest.


It is pretty clear that with my setup I must use only whole hops. I have not tried this yet, but I see no other option. As far as I can see that should work a lot better. In the worst case I'll just have to put the hops in a hop bag.

The primary reason for using the Hop Stopper is to avoid the hop debris from ending up in the plate chiller. Hop pellets shouldn't be much of a problem as long as the chiller is properly cleaned after use, but whole hops would be a nightmare.

I'll keep you updated once I get try it with whole hops in the spring.

The new brewery

In the house where I live there is a nice terrace and a little garden. It is great for brewing. The above photo was taken on the day when I brewed the weissbier. As you can see it was raining a little that day but that didn't stop me from brewing. In fact a little rain isn't a problem on brew day, at least as long as the burner or the pump doesn't get wet.

The new brewery consists of the following pieces of equipment:

A robust 100 liter stainless steel brew pot. The thickness is 1.2 mm. It is 50.8 cm wide and 50.8 cm tall. There are two 7/8" holes in it, one 1.5" above the bottom and the second 7" above the bottom. As you can see from the photo the holes are there for the weldless thermometer and the weldless spigot.

Bayou Classic Kick A Banjo Burner, a propane burner that outputs 65kW (210.000 BTU). This is definitely overkill by far, but it works great at [much] lower output. It can be adjusted all the way down, so that you can keep a cup of coffee warm. In my experience with two 40 liter batches it uses about 3.5 kg of propane per batch.


Two 11 kg propane gas containers. I bought two as it is nice to have a backup if the first one runs out. Then I can just go and get the second one from the shed. It also means that I can refill between brew days instead of having to do it on brew day. Or in worst case bringing the brewday to a halt if the propane shop is closed.

Hop Stopper, all stainless steel construction. It is installed inside the brew pot and works as a hop filter.

Therminator, a very effective plate-chiller. It is probably overkill for a brewery of this size, but it can't hurt. In any case it is very cool.

March H315 High Temperature Polysulphone Pump, a 230 volt impeller pump. I bought this one used from someone who had just recently upgraded to a much larger pump. It works nicely, but I find the fact that it needs to be primed a little annoying. If it had generated just a little suction it would have simplified the process of moving the wort.

5 meters of 1/2" silicone tubing, cut into 1, 1, and 3 meter pieces.

The brew stand is home made. The garden furniture works nicely, and was cheap too.

I bought the brew pot and the burner from Austin Homebrew Supply. As the brew pot was too big to ship through US Postal Service I got it shipped with boat freight via JetCarrier. I took advantage of the $5.99 shipping to their shipping hub in New Jersey. It took about a month before it arrived at my doorstep.



Austin Homebrew Supply:

1x	Super Stainless Steel Stock Pot (100 qt)	$239.99
1x	Two holes drilled	$19.99
1x	High Output Propane Burner	$99.99
1x	Therminator Wort Chiller	$195.00
1x	BrewVint - Plate Chiller Backflush Adaptor	$16.99
3x	Blichmann Stainless Steel 1/2" QuickConnector	$19.99

Innovative Homebrew Solutions:

1x

Hop Stopper, All Stainless Steel Construction

$90.00

Northern Brewer:

1x

Weldless Deluxe Plus, S/S Kettle Valve Kit w/barb

$39.99

Morebeer:

1x

Thermometer (3'' Face x 2" Probe)

$34.95

A quick update

Alright, enough procrastination. It has not been much of a summer this year as it has been cold and raining most of the time. Better luck next year I guess. A lot of things have happened since the last post though.

First of all I've built a whole new brewery. This one is dedicated to outdoors brewing. The plan is to use this brewery when the weather is OK and when it makes sense to brew bigger batches. In this part of the world this means early spring to late autumn.

The brew pot holds 100 liters, which in theory should make it possible to brew 80 liters of beer at a time. I have brewed with it twice this summer, an American IPA and a Weissbier. I'll post the recipes and my experiences with this new brewery shortly. In the meantime you get a photo of the brew pot and gas burner in action.

Brew #53: Weissbier

The batch was brewed 2007-10-10.

Style:
Weissbier
Type:
40 liters. All grain, batch sparge
Colour:
10 EBC (Golden)
Bitterness:
12 IBU
Malts:
7300g Wheat malt
5000g Pilsener malt
500g Melanoidin malt
500g Pale malt
400g Münchener malt
Mash:
67C, 60 min
76C, 10 min (mashout)
74% efficiency
Hops:
100g Hersbrucker pellets, 3.1%, 45 min
30g Styrian Goldings pellets, 3.2%, 15 min
Yeast:
Wyeast 3068 Weihenstephan Weizen Yeast, production date 2007-04-16, 2 liter starter
Boil:
60 min
OG: 1.052 FG: 1.016 abv: 4.8%

Brew #52: India Pale Ale

The batch was brewed 2007-08-19.

Style:
India Pale Ale
Type:
40 liters. All grain, continuous sparge
Colour:
29 EBC (Reddish brown)
Bitterness:
52 IBU
Malts:
8000g Pilsener malt
1000g Crystal malt
1000g Amber malt
700g Biscuit malt
300g Wheat malt
Mash:
67C, 60 min
76C, 10 min (mashout)
55% efficiency
Hops:
60g Cascade pellets, 6.1%, 60 min
40g Centennial pellets, 9.4%, 15 min
40g Simcoe pellets, 12.1%, 15 min
70g Centennial pellets, 9.4%, 1 min
70g Simcoe pellets, 12.1%, 1 min
Yeast:
Safale US-05, 2 packs, dry yeast, best before date 2008-11-01.
Boil:
90 min
Water treatment:
2 ts calcium carbonate
OG: 1.045 FG: 1.011 (estimated) abv: 4.5%

Malt varieties and terroir

Stan Hieronymous has written a couple of really interesting blog postings that I find particularly interesting. He draws lines between what the wine industry call terroir and the fact that the malts used by breweries have individual characteristics.

There is something to be said about the characteristics of a beer and what kinds of ingredients were used and where they were grown. The malt characteristics both depend on where it was grown and what malt variety it is. For beer's sake, at least for now, I think it is most to be said about the distinctions between malt varieties than than in which field it was grown. It is just too much of an unexplored field for anybody to say anything about terroir. The distinctions between malt varieties are much greater than between the same variety being grown in different locations.

The individualities in flavour of malt varieties is something that has not been considered by breweries and their marketing departments as something of interest. Great flavour has not been the primary reason for growing a malt variety -- economy has. A combination of how much barley could be produced per acre, the brewing efficiency, and the consistency of the malts have been the primary drivers.

Few people have thought that there have been any relationship between what malt varieties have been used to brew a beer and what the actual end result was. There are actually a lot of families of barley out there, most of them almost distinct and others grown on a very small scale. Large breweries have been mostly concerned about consistency and efficiency -- all for economic reasons. This has led to a reduced diversity of mass-produced malt varieties grown on a larger scale.

Fortunately, with the craft brewing revival, there is a new interest in traditional barley varieties. Traditional barley varieties like Maris Otter and Golden Promise are now being considered to be malt varieties that add an extra dimension to a beer.

I think that there is a lot of more things that is to be said about this subject.

Read what Stan said here:

Not all barleys are born equal
Malt (and barley) matters: Part II

Brew #51: Imperial Porter

This porter is pretty much a replica of the porter I did two months ago. This time there is less black malt and a little more münchener malt. I liked the previous one a lot, but I thought that it had a little too sharp bite from the black malts. This is an attempt at making it a bit rounder. The increased mash temperature should also make it a little richer.

The single pack of dry yeast seems to have been plenty as the fermentation started soon after pitching and it is currently very vigorous.

The batch was brewed 2007-06-17.

Style:
Imperial Porter
Type:
All grain, batch sparge
Colour:
76 EBC (Black)
Bitterness:
41 IBU
Malts:
4500g Pale malt
1500g Münchener malt
550g Dark crystal malt
500g Amber malt
250g Crystal malt
250g Dark crystal malt
250g Carafa I, debittered chocolate malt
150g Carafa II, debittered black malt
Mash:
67C, 60 min
76C, 10 min (mashout)
72% efficiency
Hops:
30g Warrior pellets, 13.8%, 60 min
20g Warrior pellets, 13.8%, 10 min
Yeast:
Nottingham, 1 pack, dry yeast, best before date 2008-09.
Boil:
90 min
OG: 1.067 FG: 1.016 (estimated) abv: 6.7%

Brew #50: Roggenbier

I am quite excited about this beer. A roggenbier is like a dunkelweizen, except that the wheat malt has been fully replaced by rye malt. Not having tried a German roggenbier before I do look very much forward to doing so. It is going to be interesting to compare this batch with a commercial interpretation of the style -- once I get hold of one.

The mash smelled absolutely wonderful when I mashed in. The predominate aromas were rye bread and nutty chocolate. I am not particularly fond of pumpernickel bread, but I do like other kinds of rye bread.

When I started brewing I thought that I had 3 kg of rye malt on had, something I did not, so 750 grams were replaced by wheat malt. This means that the rye content is 40% and not above 50% as dictated by the BJCP style definition. But, who cares. I had absolutely no problem mashing the rye.

German wheat yeasts are supposed to be pitched a little low so that the clove and banana characteristics can develop more, so this time I did not make as starter. Instead I just poured the contents of the swollen smack-pack into the wort. I really wanted to try this out in a weissbier, but this will have to do for now.

The batch was brewed 2007-06-17.

Style:
Roggenbier
Type:
All grain, batch sparge
Colour:
32 EBC (Copper)
Bitterness:
12 IBU
Malts:
2250g Rye malt
1500g Münchener malt
1000g Pale malt
750g Wheat malt
250g Caramünich malt
250g Dark crystal malt
50g Carafa I, debittered chocolate malt
Mash:
67C, 60 min
76C, 10 min (mashout)
72% efficiency
Hops:
40g Tettnanger pellets, 2.7%, 60 min
18g Tettnanger pellets, 2.7%, 15 min
Yeast:
Wyeast 3068 Weihenstephan Weizen Yeast, production date 2007-04-16, no starter
Boil:
90 min
OG: 1.053 FG: 1.013 (estimated) abv: 5.2%

Brew #49: Witbier

Witbier is, along with IPAs, a very popular beer style in this household. It is summer afterall and I just had to make another. This time I did a few twists of the earlier recipes. The recipe was different in that it used zest from two oranges and a lemon, ground coriander from a glass, steeped chamomile tea bags and dried yeast.

Fermentis, the producer of the Safbrew S-33 dried yeast packs, seems to be recommending the yeast for Belgian wheat beers, which I can only understand to be Witbiers. This is an experimental brew, so I've gone ahead and created a Witbier with it. In theory it doesn't sound that bad. Literature I've read say that the yeast is the Edme strain, which is seems to be a British yeast strain. What its origin is I do not know. There seem to be other dried variants of this yeast strain as well.

The batch was brewed 2007-06-05.

Style:
Witbier
Type:
All grain, batch sparge
Colour:
7 EBC (Pale yellow)
Bitterness:
14 IBU
Malts:
3000g Pale malt
3000g Raw wheat kernels
500g Oatmeal
300g Dry light malt extract
Mash:
66C, 60 min
76C, 10 min (mashout)
67% efficiency
Hops:
40g Styrian Goldings pellets, 3.2%, 60 min
30g Saaz pellets, 3.3%, 15 min
Other:
10g ground coriander
2 bags of chamomile tea
zest from two oranges
zest from one lemon
Yeast:
Safbrew S-33, 1 pack, dry yeast, best before date 2008-11-01.
Boil:
90 min
OG: 1.050 FG: 1.012 (estimated) abv: 5.0%

Update: Oslo is experiencing a heat wave this week. The fermentation temperature has reached 26C during the day, and thoughout the night it falls to about 21C. The outside temperature has been in the vicinity of 30C the last few days. The primary fermentation was over after two days and the fermentation bucket now sits idle. I'll leave it there for another week before kegging. The houses here do for obvious reasons not have any air conditioning systems, so there is not really much that one can do about this other than hoping for the beer not being ruined. This weekend's double brew, a German pilsener and a Roggenbier, has been postponed until the weather returns to something more normal. In the meantime I'm enjoying the nice sunny weather on the terrace.