Begin Brewing!

Cooler with ice water (left) and cooling jacket with fermenter inside (right).  Temperature controller and temperature monitors visible. As I suspect most home brewers do, I've constantly worked to improve my knowledge, equipment, and processes.  I've gone from extract to all-grain, from my kitchen stove to a dedicated RIMS system, from plastic bucket fermenters to stainless steel fermenters, from pre-crushed grain to freshly-crushed.  I've even made efforts to alter my water chemistry to better match the style I'm brewing.  I think my beer's gotten better as a result of all that. One aspect I've not controlled well so far is fermentation temperature.  In part, this has been because I didn't think I needed to.  I brew primarily Belgian beer styles, and most of the Belgian abbey brewers let the yeast ferment at whatever temperature it wants to.  They don't try to cool it, because they claim this can make the yeast stall out.  They don't heat ...

InkBird Temperature Controller I Use If you've been home brewing for any length of time, you know the importance of maintaining an appropriate and consistent temperature during the fermentation of your beer.  The goal is to keep the beer within a temperature range that allows your yeast to work its magic without getting too hot (and thus generating off-flavors) or too cold (and going dormant before finishing the job). I do all of my fermentation in my basement, which maintains a year-round temperature in the low-to-mid 60's (note:  all temperatures referenced in the post are in Fahrenheit unless otherwise stated).  I also have switched to only stainless steel fermenters, which I personally prefer to glass or plastic. Fermwrap heater A few months ago, I acquired a fermwrap heater  ($23.99) and an Inkbird temperature controller  ($38.99 or less when on sale periodically).  I'd been using these to keep my fermentation temperatures from getting too ...

Like most home brewers, I've been gradually learning more and improving my skills over time.  One of the areas I've been trying to improve is temperature control during fermentation and bottle conditioning. I'd ordered an expensive controller online which looked like the ultimate gadget.  I found that its temperature probe was many degrees off and that it couldn't be calibrated to read accurately.  I abandoned that model. Then I found an inexpensive one on eBay.  That arrived from China.  Its temperature unit was Celsius, which required conversion to Fahrenheit when I used it.  That one seemed to be pretty accurate but wasn't so well-made.  I used it for a while until I saw this InkBird unit on sale. The InkBird ITC-308 has been a joy to use.  It's met several of my criteria for a fermentation temperature controller: It can use Fahrenheit for temperature display and setting It can be calibrated to read accurately against a known-accur...