Good morning all...so, the Pilsner with the CaraPils that everyone was curious about hit a bit of a snag. I placed the fermenter (carboy) in a mini-freezer with an InkBird temp. controller and a mini-heater. I let it sit at 52 deg. F and do its thing for 4 days. I took a gravity reading and it was very low but I figured that it was just slow to start. I took another reading at 8 days and no change in gravity. So, I did a new starter with White Labs pilsner yeast and re-pitched. I checked the gravity at about 4 days since I re-pitched and nothing. I let it go another 7 days and re-tested and still nothing - something was wrong.
Upon further investigation, I discovered that the entire bottom half of the wort had frozen solid! Apparently the temp sensor on the InkBird was too high in the freezer and wasn't shutting the freezer off enough to prevent freezing. So, I took the carboy out and let it thaw and stuck it in a cool (but not chilly) closet. Wouldn't you know it, but the darn thing is bubbling away and really krausening now. Everything looks to be back on track.
For the record, color, smell, and taste (albeit I tasted it when it was half frozen and stalled) seem to be not too far off what I would expect from a pilsner (I know, it would be hard to tell with those conditions, but it wasn't waaaay off anyway). I plan on testing the gravity this weekend and transferring it to a secondary. I will be lagering it in a secondary carboy back in the freezer but with a few modifications to my setup. 1) I am going to install a wooden floor in the freezer to keep the glass off the bottom where the condensing coils are, 2) I am going to better position the temp sensor lower in the freezer near the freezing coils (common sense, I know), and 3) I am going to switch to a thermal jacket for the carboy instead of the mini-heater. This should allow me to lager around 33-34 degrees and clear that baby right up.
I plan on force carbonating this one in a Corny keg. I'll keep everyone posted on how this one turns out.
Cheers!
