So thanks to Jim, Russ & Aleman (+ an army of others) who have helped me on my way.
On this batch, I treated the water before hand (camden tablet), pitched with Safe04, kept temp constant with ATC800, which was connected to a tube heater & cooling spike, connected to my flash cooler, stirred up yeast to get last couple of points down, left in FV for 7 days, then added beerbrite directly to FV & lowered temp to 13 degrees for 3 days, before racking to 18l keg & taking off 4 bottles.
Oww one thing I also did extra, was to add a 15ml of creamy top to my keg, as I have to say, I do like to see a 'skimming' of head om my beers.
In addition to this, I drilled a hole in my Fv for my bubble lock (main hole used for cooling spike) & fitted a length of hose, with a slightly smaller diameter (heated hose & pulled though), then connected my bubble lock to this via a small siphon tap. As on the Lions Pride, I forgot the bubble lock and ended up, dragging air though the bubble lock & it's containted water into the FV, when I testing the gravity. Now, I turn the tap off, disconnect the bubble lock & use the tap to vent when required. Also, when the fermentation has stopped (day 7), I removed the bubble lock completely & simply used the tap to vent off any excess pressure.
My next plan is to come up with a way of getting my ATC800 probe into the FV itself, as at the moment, I simply attached it externally, using duck tape, which worked fine but was subject to changes in surrounding temperature. I addressed the worst of this, by using some spare pipe lagging & connecting it over the probe itself i.e to help insulate it. I was toying with the idea of fitting it in the lid but given the proximately to the cooling spike itself, I wasn't sure how accurate the measurements would be. So I may opt to get a hollow housing made, so that I can put the housing into the FV via a hole & pop the probe into this housing, then locate this about halfway down. As when I was cooling my wort initially, I noticed a 3 degree 'swing' between the top & bottom of the FV temps, so half way, so give a more accurate measure. Incidentally, I taped my probe to the bottom of the FV for this batch.
So thanks again for your help, put simply, I couldn't have done it without you
Darren
