Oh Boy! Oh Boy!

You will remember that I've been having trouble keeping my Czech Pilsner at the proper temperature for lagering. Well, that's all about to change because my freezer thermostat arrived today! It will henceforth be called the beermostat.

I haven't hooked it up yet, because I'm afraid of the garage. Or rather, I'm afraid of the mice that my husband says may or may not be living in the garage. But as soon as he gets home tonight, we're going for it.

So how does this thing work, you ask? Well, it's basically a box with a power outlet and a temperature gauge. There's a thermometer coming out of one end, and a power cord out of the other. So you anchor the thermometer to the inside of the freezer, plug the freezer into the box, and plug the box into the wall. When you set the temperature gauge to the desired temperature (Between 20 and 80 degrees Fahrenheit), it monitors the temperature of the freezer and cuts the power when it goes more than 4 degrees below your set temperature. Then, when the temperature is a few degrees higher than your desired temperature it turns the power back on again. Since air temperature changes faster than liquid temperature, the beer should hold relatively steady within it's optimum fermenting or conditioning range.

I'll be setting it to about 37 degrees, so that it hovers right between the 35-40 that I want. Mind you, this particular beer has been sitting in temperatures between 30 and 70 degrees for the past week (damn you San Jose and your crazy temperature fluctuations!), so I'm guessing the damage has already been done and that cold conditioning at this point isn't going to make a huge difference in the flavor of the beer. But I want to make sure I at least attempt to follow all the steps of the process. And I'll have something to compare to my next batch, which I plan to do right.