Octoberfest Fermentation notes

I brewed the Octoberfest on Saturday night. I am using a cooler with frozen water bottles to control my fermentation temperature. I put the keg into the cooler the first night with 8 water bottles. It kept the temp at about 64 degrees. I have had about an inch of krausen on top of the brew since Sunday morning when I checked the brew. It seems to have taken off sometime in the middle of the night Saturday so the lag time was very minimal. I have been changing the bottles out every 12 hours or so. It has been keeping a pretty steady temp from 61-64 degrees. I have had to drop a few of the bottles as the fermentation dies down.
The frozen bottles after the 12 hrs have been still pretty frozen the last day or so. So I changed them out last night about 10pm and by midnight it was down to 59 degrees in the cooler so I took out three of the bottles and left only three in the cooler. This morning it was 64 degrees.
I plan on leaving this to ferment at least two weeks. Then I will bottle and let it sit at about 70 to carb and condition for 5 weeks, maybe spending the last week in the fridge. I will be drinking these by the very beginning of October.

Brew Day

Yesterday I brewed up a Mr. Beer Recipe called Octoberfest Cream Ale. It is supposed to be a tasty ale version of a classic lager recipe. Im trying my new cooler with frozen water bottles inside to keep the temp down. I added 8 water bottles and the temp is at a steady 64 degrees.
I did pitch the yeast warm at about 85 degrees but I think it will be ok. Im going to let this ferment for about 2-3 weeks and then let it condition for 4-6 weeks.


Octoberfest Cream Ale
Recipe Octoberfest Cream Ale Style Oktoberfest/Marzen
Brewer Scott Batch 2.13 gal
Extract
Recipe Characteristics

Recipe Gravity 1.047 OG Estimated FG 1.012 FG
Recipe Bitterness 13 IBU Alcohol by Volume 4.5%
Recipe Color 14° SRM Alcohol by Weight 3.5%
Ingredients

Quantity Grain Type Use
1.21 lb MrB. Mellow Amber UME Extract Extract
1.21 lb MrB. Octoberfest Vienna Lager Extract Extract
Quantity Hop Type Time
0.50 oz Generic Pellet 0 minutes
1.00 oz MrB. Octoberfest Vienna Lager Pellet 5 minutes
Quantity Misc Notes
1 unit Safale S-04 English Ale Yeast Other
Recipe Notes

Batch Notes

Brewed 08/14/10

48qt cooler temp control test

I got a free 48qt cooler a few weeks ago. I was thinking of converting this into a mash tun. But I dont really want to do all grain. I decided that I would use this as a temperature control chamber for my smaller batches. I do my smaller batches in Mr. Beer kegs. I really like the size and the fact that they are brown makes them less permeable to light. I also like the fact that there is no airlock. Just a vented lid to let air out but nothing in.

My brewing plans did a complete 180 when I saw Mr. beer was having a sale. Its been a couple years since I have used any of their ingredients. I grabbed up two of their recipes which were on sale. The first one is a schwarzbier. I have always liked this style of beer so we will see how the MB recipe compares. Now it is a lager and it is made with Mr. Beer ingredients. So I don't have super high hopes. But I do really like the Octoberfest Vienna Lager from Mr. Beer, which is the base for this kit.
The other recipe I got was a Octoberfest Cream Ale. This also uses the Octoberfest vienna lager as a base. I also plan to try to ferment these in the new temperature control chamber. I got US-04 for these so hopefully I can get very few fruity esters in these beers.

More updates

Its been a while since I have brewed. I did end up doing the Muntons Mexican cerveza. It didn't turn out very good. I want to do some stuff coming up for the end of summer, Oktoberfest, and Christmas. But I need to get on the ball.
I really want to do a true lager Oktoberfest, a Belgian dubbel, and another attempt at an Old Fezziwig clone, along with my normal IPA, and stouts and porters for winter.
Beer just hasn't been tasting really good to me lately and I cant figure out why. I think part of it may be the larger 5 gallon batches. I get towards the end of the two cases of each beer and I cant drink them anymore. I think I may do just house beers like IPA's or brown ales in 5 gallons and then try the seasonals in 2.5 gallon batches.