It’s supposed to hit 24 tomorrow, so I’m taking advantage of the heat wave to brew a CAP before we drop back into negative readings.
Yeah, assuming there’s anything positive about this relentless winter - I brewed 2 weeks ago today and chilled my wort to ~ 65F in 11 minutes.
For the decoction step, Mrs. R said “We can go to the kitchen and boil on the gas stove top, right?” and I said YES!
Left my dang hose outside too long - froze solid! I guess if I buy a new hose, I can brew this weekend… Still below freezing here north of Atlanta!
We had a 50 degree swing here the other day. It went from -20 to +30 overnight. What a huge difference. This winter seems to be making up for the last 10 years of wimpy winters. We’re having a hardcore, old-school Minnesota winter up here. I think my Norwegian heritage is coming through for me - I’m growing a huge thick beard. My genes are responding favorably to the frigid temps!
It’s supposed to be -19 tomorrow morning with 16 mph winds. There’s a good chance school will be called off and I’ll be brewing some IPA. Not so bad in the attached garage. The main inconvenience is lugging the kettle inside and down to the utility room to chill. Brew on!
11 full cords or 33 face cords; I buy a full semi load of hardwood every 4 years. That was $925 last summer. 500 gallons of propane which is purchased in the summer very 2 years. The price of propane is a little cheaper during the summer months in Wisconsin, but the “summer rate” has been discontinued many years ago. I had the 1500 sqft house built in 1991, with double the code requirements for insulation.
Edit: Having dry SEASONED wood (2 years), increases the BTU output ~40 percent.
Just bring it inside and let it thaw in the bath tub or run some hot water through it and all is good, that’s what us ‘northern folks’ do…
Sure enough, school’s off for tomorrow. I’m throwing down Dean Larsen’s Celebration Ale recipe. I brewed this recipe a couple years ago and thought it came out well, if a little lacking in the hops department. That was before I got a handle on water chemistry, so I’m hoping this batch turns out a little better.
The windchills tomorrow morning should be in the -45 range. Don’t worry though - I’ll be in the garage, where the air temp should only be around -19.
Seriously, we must really be earning an awesome spring/summer. I can’t wait.
or maybe mother earth is starting to fight back… :
Unfortunately, full-scale brewing indoors just isn’t an option for me. It should be around 20-25 F here this Saturday, so I’m going to sack-up and jury-rig some tarps to block the wind and brew outside. The part of my patio where I brew has a roof and I have an infrared heater to take the chill off. It’s really the wind that’s the problem - it messes with my burners and really impacts my boil-off rate. That just means more monitoring during the boil with my refractometer so I hit my target OG.
If it follows the most recent pattern we will
- Continue to freeze until EOM March
- Rain like cats and dogs every 27 hours until EOM April
- Wash away any loose soil in my yard and off the farms all Spring
- Go directly into another drought with 95+ deg temps every day until September
- No rain from June 1st until Mid-September
- Be back in the deep freeze by mid-October.
More and more I ask myself why I stay in Iowa. :
Paul
That’s the exact pattern here recently. It’s crap.
It was pretty cold out there this morning, fellas. I should have brought my propane tank in to warm up last night - it froze up within the first 5 min. So I brought it in for an hour or so and gave it another shot. Everything was fine from that point onward.
I spent the majority of the brew session indoors, doing other brewing chores and organizing in the basement. Celebrationish Ale is bubbling away!
Just having to vent this morning as my kids are off school again today because according to the powers that be it is just too cold! My kids have not had a full week of school since winter break ended either due to cold or snow or some national holiday. Mind you I have one in HS, one in Jr. high and one in 5th grade, they all take buses or carpools to school and since we are in the modern age here, all schools are climate controlled environments!!!
Everyone I know goes to work each day, some wait outside for public transportation even, I know contractors that get bundled up to work outside, I see pothole patchers daily braving the elements and I still take my dog for a walk. Since when did we all become a society of wimps?
I do understand that not all people live in the 'burbs and may walk to school or whatever but this is Chicago, we do have winter and it is usually cold, we all have winter jackets, gloves, hats, scarves and boots so bundle up people and get real, this is just ridiculous already!
Now back to your regularly scheduled programming…
Me and my girlfriend are starting to talk about moving to Fort Collins where it’s not so freakin’ cold as Iowa City, Iowa. I biked to work today and it was -8 with pretty much no wind. It was pretty cold, but not too bad. I don’t like to go much colder though, especially if there’s any more than a 5 or so mph wind. I’d like it to at least be seasonal temps in the 20s.
I brew inside on the stove, so no issues with cold or bad weather affecting my brewing.
Relax. It’s for the kids.
But seriously, I don’t disagree with you in general. However, in a large public school system like Chicago’s I understand that not all families are as well equipped with cold weather gear. This cold is extreme, if not so much in intensity as in duration. It’s wreaking havoc on infrastructure and I’d hate to see something happen to a kid because the parents were ill-equipped for the cold or just bad circumstances in frigid temps.
What bothered me more was last year they closed schools in anticipation of snow. Because we all know that the forecast is exactly what will happen.
However, it’s not just the cold. We get the same thing in the summer when its hot. I don’t know when people lost the common sense to cool off when its hot and bundle up when its cold, but it sure seems like something changed in the last 30 years or so. Probably the widespread distribution and reliance on A/C.
Joe,
I agree that in the city it can prove to be a bigger issue for your reasons stated but here in the burbs not so much.
My office is across from a large sledding hill and both yesterday and today there are families sledding. Also in the paper as well as in my neighborhood are kids bundled up playing hockey in their back yard rinks so why is it too cold to be in a heated classroom?
Just because there are issues to combat in the city doesn’t mean the entire area need to cancel school across the board
I agree with you on this. I grew up in rural NW Iowa (“rural is pretty much everywhere in NW Iowa). Our winters were always this cold. -5 was not abnormal. Snow came in 6”-10" loads and and there was always wind. We went to school everyday you could get a vehicle to the road. We played outside at recess everyday and non of died because of the weather.
We wore long underwear, we had heavy coats and thick stocking caps. When they started selling “ski gloves” it was a godsend over mittens and yellow cotton gloves. We worked outside everyday doing chores and repairing machinery. we learned to stay out of the wind if possible but just dealt with if it wasn’t. Kids are awfully tough if you let them be.
The main reason for the 2 hour delays and closures due to cold is the threat of lawsuits against a school when the parents don’t dress their kids warm enough.
I’ll leave it at that as I don’t think we should turn down that path of discussion.
I’ll be kegging a RIPA and a Scottish 70 in the next couple of weeks in the comfort of my basement. I’ll look at brewing dates as the college basketball regular season winds down.
Paul
Agreed.
In general, I think society has become much more cautious about these things (extreme weather just being one example) as society has become much more litigious.
I have no idea if they’re closing the private schools in the City. I know the universities are not closing.
I also know that I moved my saison this morning to be right near the heating vent as the basement temps are a little chillier.
“I also know that I moved my saison this morning to be right near the heating vent as the basement temps are a little chillier.”
Because after all, it really comes down to what’s best for the beer;)