Started 5th generation of my simple sour mash last night, renewed the grain bed just a little with some additional corn and rye, 4 gallons of backset, 6-1/2 gallons of mineralized water, 16.5 lb of dextrose. Wrapped it back up in its blanket

Was 84° at 9:00 last night. 87.5° F at 10:00 a.m. this morning. 3.5° of metabolic warming overnight. And when I stirred it this morning, the CO2 came bubbling up like a witches cauldron.

I find this to be unbelievably cool. The energy in that sugar that's being released as heat, was sunlight energy being transmuted into the energy of chemical bonds, by photosynthesis. The CO2 being released from metabolizing that sugar, came from CO2 in the atmosphere and just got stored there for a while, until the yeast came along to eat it and send it back to the atmosphere.

It's fossilized sunlight and chemical transmutation. Sure, it's basic physics and chemistry. But it's also alchemy, kind of magical. I love this hobby.