10
Most Ales do well at 68°F primary, to limit phenols and undesirable esters made by yeast during growth phase.
Secondary can go up to the higher end of recommended temp of a strain since there isn't much left for yeast to feed on and it's at this time the yeast consume those byproducts made in primary. So the higher temp encourages yeast metabolism.
There ...
9
I advise looking at HotHead from Omega Labs: http://www.omegayeast.com/portfolio/14158-2/
Flocculation: Medium-High
Attenuation: 75-85%
Temperature Range: 62-98° F (16-37° C)
Alcohol Tolerance: 11% ABV
8
Short answer - it's not that bad, per se.
Long answer:
The biggest 'problem' is consistency/isolation of variables.
Particularly when all-grain brewing there are a lot of things to keep track of throughout the process. As you keep brewing, you'll want to aim to improve parts of your process, and you'll probably develop a few favorite recipes. In a ...
8
After 9 days, primary is pretty close to done if not already complete. Yeast activity is starting to slow anyways. The 10° drop to 59° May have caused the yeast to floculate and settle down (cold crash) prematurely. Warm it back up 2° an hour and give the fermentor a gentle swirl to get yeast back into suspension.
All in all, you didn't hurt anything. ...
7
You may want to check out brewpi - it's a fermentation monitor, but isn't limited to just fermentation. The temperature devices used are DS18B20 temperature probes. You can get these pre-made in waterproof housing from sellers on ebay - the project also has a shop that sells them. The manufacturers claim they are accurate to +/- 0.5 C, although my tests ...
7
Get yourself a decent homebrewing book. John Palmer's book "How to Brew" is a great starting place.
Watch some youtube videos on homebrewing. This one has a million views. (You guys are lucky, when I started we didn't have youtube.)
Join a homebrew club and watch someone brew some beer. The American Homebrewers Association (AHA) has a ton of information ...
6
A "brew fridge" might be one suggestion to brew beer at a cooler than ambient temperature. It is basically a converted old fridge that has no shelves and has been converted to hold the fermenting vessel (eg a carboy or demijohn) at lower temp. I have seen a home brewer just use a recycled "normal" fridge with its internal thermostat set "high" to brew lager ...
6
You want to keep the temp lower for the first 4-5 days. That's when the majority of esters are formed. After that, it's not only OK but preferable, to let the temp rise. If you need to keep it cooler, you can put the fermenter in a tub of water and add ice or ice packs.
6
Son of a Fermentation Chiller
Look up "son of a fermentation chiller". This is a two-chamber box made out of styrofoam insulation. It has a temperature controller and a fan. You load one chamber up with bottles of frozen water, and the temperature controller determines when to pump cold air into the brew chamber.
I made mine in an afternoon*, and it has no ...
5
Cold water alone will not drop your temperatures eight degrees. You will need ice packs. A more readily available option is to go out and buy a case of water bottles from the store, freeze a couple of bottles, and just rotate them out every 6-8 hours by placing them in the water of the swamp cooler. Take an old cotton t-shirt and pull it over the top of ...
5
Yes, there is a potential risk of bottle bombs, as with any incomplete ferment. The residual fermentables can be fermented by the remaining yeast in the bottle along with the priming sugar and produce more CO2 than intended. Ideally you should cold crash only after you are sure primary is complete. Many brewers simply leave the beer in primary for at least 2 ...
5
If you add near boiling water to fermenting wort, then yes, you can definitely kill some of the yeast, at least, any yeast that come in contact with that near boiling water. If there was enough yeast in the fermenter, distributed in other parts of the beer, then a lot of it may still be alive. If you see signs of fermentation (bubbling airlock, krausen) it ...
5
40 degrees is quite a bit lower than the bottom range for your yeast. I'd expect that they've gone pretty much inactive. But don't worry! All you need to do to reactivate them is to warm your brew back up to the optimal temperature and provide some gentle agitation. Be careful not to splash! As fermentation has already stated, you don't want to add any ...
5
Firstly, stop opening it, you looking at it isn't going to make anything good happen and could potentially lead to an infection.
Try to get it somewhere warmer, assuming it's an ale yeast (you didn't say what type of yeast you were using) try to get it to 65-70F. Swirl it very gently a few times when it's in the warmer area to try to get the yeast active ...
5
There isn't an ideal temp for any of this. There is a recommended range offered by the manufacturer to help guide the end user towards a higher degree of success that something will ferment. As for US-05 yeast, I've heard of people using it at weird temps outside the "recommended" range and having success. But success for them may be different than ...
5
I don't live in a tropical climate, but summers here get quite hot (chicago IL)
during the summer I use a Large rubbermade Tote, and fill it with water and put my fermentation buckets into it.
it keeps my temperature stable around 70F, and if I need to get it to a lower temp, I add Ice, or frozen water bottles to it.
5
They must be referring to the temperature of the yeasties themselves, which would be the fermenter temperature. Nothing else makes sense.
4
As you reduce the temperature you need to compensate with more yeast, just as you do when brewing a lager. E.g. for a 1.050 ale fermented at 60°F a 2 liter starter would be the minimum.
Alternatively, if pitching from a smaller starter, increase the temperature slowly after primary fermentation is almost complete - e.g. 3 days or when you hit 75% of ...
4
Positive temperature swings have been discussed - fusels and esters are the main problems. If the temperature fluctuating then you'll also have negative swings.
Negative temperature swings can cause the yeast to drop out. This is particularly true with the Belgian strains, such as WLP530 and WLP570 - even with constant ambient temperature, removing the heat ...
4
I believe with all homebrewing that there is never a wasted batch, even the worst of the worst is an opportunity to learn something, so don't throw it out yet.
You were lucky it was so late in the fermentation. The yeast won't die at the high temperature, and at this stage you may find you increased attenuation slightly. If a gravity reading indicates ...
4
The main point of raising the temp is simple. As the sugars become limiting the yeast begin to enter a dormancy phase. As yeast slow down the temp of your fermentation begins to lower too. That lowering temp is also a signal to yeast to go dormant. This causes a cyclical effect of potential having the yeast drop out sooner than you want and you do not ...
4
It uses peltier devices - a thermoelectric cooling/heating device - when a current is applied they chill on one side and warm the other. They're quite common but relatively inefficient in terms of energy compared to a compressor that you'd find in a fridge. Their efficiency is based on how quickly you can dissipate the heat generated. Thermal design is a key ...
4
No you haven't. But, you should probably let it warm up to the recommended temperature, let it finish fermenting and then switch to fermenting ales for a while. It ought to still ferment fully and be drinkable, but it won't taste anything like what you might expect a lager to taste like.
Lagers are really much more difficult to produce well than ales due to ...
4
Generally, most yeast created flavors will happen in the first 72 hours. After that (in general) you can start ramping up. You can also wait 4-5 days to be safe.
4
Nope. Beer will fight very hard to be beer. :)
Your beer will not taste exactly like planned, but if it is bubbling then you are off to a good start.
Kolsch uses a lager yeast and they are happy with the colder temps. As the beer warms up the yeast will also warm up and work faster, but keep the temps reasonable!
A lower amount of water will mean that ...
4
Most bad esters are made during growth phase and early fermentation, it's only at the end of primary fermentation that you do your diacetyl rest, after the risks of undesirable esters has past.
4
In general, fermenting lager yeast at room temperatures would result in off flavors due to esters, diacetyl, and other components. The "California Common" is an exception to this, and the standard explanation is that the yeast strain (Wyeast 2112 or WLP810) used for this style of beer can handle higher temperatures than most lager strains. Who knows, however,...
4
Given that Fermentis lists the maximum fermentation temperature for US-05 as 18-28°C, you should be fine as long as the fermenting beer doesn't go too far outside of that range. During the first ca. 2-3 days, the yeast metabolism is quite exothermic but how much this affects the temperature of the fermenting wort depends on many factors, not the least of ...
4
There's many ways to keep cool I think all of them have been discussed here.
As far as your question. Once you're past the growth phase especially and high krausen to be safe a little more heat generally isn't to bad.
One trick is to do a very large yeast pitch to basically skip most of the growth phase where most esters are generated. This can be done ...
4
Most often than not, from the "overall temperature", beer quality depends on the temperature over the first 1-2 days of fermentation. Make sure you cool your wort well after boiling, and pitch the yeast at temperatures not higher than 16-18C.
The "swamp cooler" works because water evaporates from the wet cloth wrapped around the fermenter -- in the same way ...
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