BeerBorg

So I brewed this morning!.......

It's been a brutally cold winter in the NorthEast, can't wait for some relief!

I feel your pain but in just the opposite way. Being in Arizona, obviously we catch the summer heat worse than most areas of the country but we can still go out in it and don't have to shovel it.
Does the freezing winters curtail your brewing to almost nothing or can you do lagers moreso than ales with your basements and all? I miss a basement here (raised in Colorado with one) so when I brew most anything it is in a cooler with ice bottles just to maintain low to mid-60's ferm temps. Good fortunes brewing this weekend.

Here in the North land we get it both ways; In the winter it's too cold to brew ales without constantly maintaining a proper temp. (I really should learn to do lagers and eliminate the problem.) But then in the summer it's so dang hot we have to use ice packs - or a 'fridge - to keep the temps down.

I do have a basement, so I can get a constant temps most of the year, between 60 - 70. Also during the winter I do get to cold crash in the garage.

But I want to get outside an enjoy some warmer weather too....

Spring fever.... we got snowed on again. Got to use my tractor/snow blower for a bit, then tore out a bearing in the blower ..... grrrrrrr.... where the hell is spring?????????

Usually my basement stays between 60-70, so it's perfect ale territory. But this winter was so brutal in the NYC area, I had to ferment in my beer closet upstairs. A little too warm, but not terribly so. Now it's warming up outside (I hope), and I can keep my ales in the basement again. I also do lagers from time to time, but I have a fridge for that.

I used S-04 yeast in this one. I checked in Less than 8 hours in, and there was a Ton of activity!

I've cheated myself!

As I've said before; I'm a scotch snob. Well, I received a bottle of Johnny Walker Black as a Christmas gift. Try as I might I can't drink it. So I've been thinking of ways I could mix it or something as I'd hate to see it go totally to waste. A week or so ago I realized I could use it in my bubbler air-lock. So I did on the batch I brewed up yesterday. But now, as I lift the cover off my fermentation chamber, instead of being greeted by the smell of fermenting beer/hops, I'm slapped by the stench of stale scotch.

Oh well. At least I know my yeasties are happy.

Huh. I looked and I looked for this post. I could have sworn I put it in the "What Are You Brewing" thread but here it is. Louie, if you want to move it there I won't mind.

I'm getting spring fever too. I no longer brew indoors, and I ferment in my garage via temp-controlled fridges. As a result, I have been limited to brewing lagers during the winter months. Ideally, I'm still a few weeks away from ale weather - but, I'm very much looking forward to it.

We usually go from a mild winter to summer pretty quickly though we are actually having a spring this year. But, this weekend will see us get close to or right about 80! I'm not ready for the AC yet.