13
1) Can I just place my fermentation tank in this tub of water to counter the heat? Yes. This will work to a degree (ha, ha.) The water is slowly but constantly evaporating. The energy need to make liquid water into gas comes out of the water's temperature. This "evaporative cooling" will help cool your wort by a few degrees.
2) Will this method work during ...
12
This method is sometimes referred to as a "swamp cooler", and is well known and used in homebrewing circles. Honestly, if the brew shop employee told you it wouldn't work then they are either (a) trying to sell you a brewing fridge, or (b) not that educated on homebrewing.
Change out some ice packs in the water twice a day and you get get down to the low ...
11
Yeast work better at warmer temps, and at this point you want the yeast to ferment the priming and carb your beer. That means you should keep the beer around 70-75°F (21-24°C) while you're trying to carb it. Once it's carbed, putting it in the fridge will not only aid the dissolution of CO2 into the beer, but will also retard staling. At this point, your ...
10
It's a combination of human perception and physical science. Volatile compounds are less volatile at cold temperatures (physical chemistry), and the human nervous system is dulled or numbed slightly at colder temperatures (human).
This is the same reason why the Brits like to drink their beer "warm" (not ice cold = more flavor), and why the mega brewers ...
9
No way. You will kill everything in your beer at this temperature. The pasteurization process actually uses lower temps, probably with less exposure time, and kills them all.
And its ok to use any beer yeast to carbonation, you don't need the same strain.
9
The first temperature is of the water you are adding while the second is the expected temperature of the mash after it has been added.
So by adding 12.81 qt of water at 163.7 F to the grain (presumably at room temp) the mixture should land around 152 F. Mashing out is an optional (though common) step that is meant to bring the mash above the temperature ...
8
There are several things to consider here. Certainly slowing down your boil will change your rate of evaporation, but that's only a problem if you're having a hard time hitting your target volumes. The main consideration is your bitterness contribution from hops.
Alpha acid isomerization, like most chemical reactions, is temperature dependent. It happens at ...
8
I would get hold of another sachet of yeast as a backup. If you have a local homebrew store, almost any type of yeast will work for this kit, but I'd recommend Safale US-05 if you can get that, since that will give you a cleaner profile. If they have liquid yeasts, then Wyeast 1056 or White Labs WLP001 will produce equivalent results. Once you've got hold of ...
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 ...
7
The bulk of the starch-sugar conversion happens in the first 15 minutes of the mash, so that's probably not a big problem. You might need to mash for 90-120 minutes rather than 60 to get a really good, full conversion, though.
I usually have to do a longer mash when I'm mashing "cool" (which you are), anyway.
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 ...
6
During the start of the fermentation the Yeast reproduces quickly using the oxygen present in the beer and produces diacetyl which imparts a buttery flavor.
Which is why it is usually recommended to start the fermentation at a lower temperature to slow down the diacetyl production (and the reproduction rate, I suppose).
The beer fermentation is then '...
6
It's not usually necessary to cool - most refractometers have built in Auto Temperature Compensation (ATC) to correct for temperatures up to 30C/86F. However, for hot samples in a warm environment then some cooling may be needed.
When the ambient temp is cool (<20C/70F) the ATC will be sufficient and that the quantity of liquid is small and has a very ...
6
Warmer temperatures will allow the yeast to continue its work, cleaning up the beer. Colder temperatures will promote yeast flocculation which helps to clear the beer. It'd suggest leaving the beer in the fermentation temperature range for a week or two after the final gravity has been reached, and then moving it to the cooler basement to help it clear.
6
According to this calculator, adding 1.4oz of sugar to 2gal at 35°F is equivalent to adding 5.4oz at 68°F.
At 35°F the disolved CO2 is around 1.61vol whereas at 68°F it is 0.86vol.
In your case the CO2 level should be around 2.9vol after carbonation at 68°F, it is very fizzy for a regular Ale (see carbonation guidelines ), but it should be fine and not ...
5
Hehe, bad idea - you couldn't have a beer on brewday since you'd have to stay sober to handle this with appropriate care!
But seriously, I'm wondering that if you have to ask the question about suitability then you are probably not familiar with handling liquid nitrogen. As well as getting suitable training, you would need equipment that is designed to ...
5
This sounds about right. A bigger brew doesn't always hit FG within 4 days. I'm sure you'll be fine leaving it another week.
The mash temperature is high, so this could have produced a larger than normal amount of non-fermentables, leading to a high FG. But, I wouldn't make that conclusion until after at least another week has passed, with an ambient temp ...
5
Absolutely. If you need to cool the bucket further you could alternate adding ice packs to maintain your fermenting temps.
5
If your wort was at 80°F/27°C, you definitely didn't kill your yeast. Yeast thrive at temperatures well into the 90s, and can survive significantly higher.
You don't want to ferment at that temperature, though, and likewise you don't want to pitch that warm because immediately dropping the temperature can cause your yeast to flocculate early.
5
You can reuse the yeast - the temperature range top of 73°F (23°C) is for the recommended fermentation profile.
In the lab, researchers shock the yeast by raising the temperature from 25°C/77°F to 37°C/98°F and holding it there for several hours.
Your brief venture into 85°F (29.5°C) was short - 1.5 hours - so if any shock has occurred, it ...
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
I'm going to assume you're basically doing "batch sparging" (adding the sparge liquor in batches due to capacity), not that you're "step mashing" (using hot water infusions to move the whole mash through a set of different temperature "steps").
Once the enzymes are denatured, they are … denatured. :) They will not return or restart their ability to convert ...
5
It would help in a couple ways if you gently stirred the wort with a sanitized spoon as it cools. First, it will make it cool faster. Second, you'll get homogenous wort so you'll get an accurate temp reading no matter where you check it.
5
There are kits with call themselves "lager" kits, but if you make them with the yeast provided and at the temperatures suggested, they will not produce a true lager beer. The beer they produce might taste quite similar to a light lager, but they will be ales. They would probably fit into one of these (2015) BJCP categories:
1C Cream Ale
18A Blonde Ale
I'...
5
It's fairly safe to say that bottle conditioning at -5°c will not yield good results.
Even high ABV beers stored below freezing will form ice crystals and force a separation of the water and ethanol. (Eisbock)
While many yeasts can survive freezing temperatures the become dormant or have their metabolism slowed down so much they no longer perform useful ...
5
Specifically when using S-04 (or most other English Ale yeasts) they are very sensitive to temperature drops. Other strains might tolerate starting so high, but the cooling wort is likely to send an English strain into hibernation early.
While pitching S-04 at 80F may or may not effect viability; as the wort cools the yeast might go dormant. Most English ...
4
The yeast will survive. Most yeast will survive up to 30C, and some strains up to 40C. The pitching temperature is high, so you will probably get some off flavors from that, namely, more fruitiness from increased ester production, and a hot alcohol taste from fusel alcohols (think bad whiskey.)
If you can chill the wort down to 18C that would be ideal to ...
4
The heat of your wort will not be uniform throughout the kettle, it's going to be at its hottest at the bottom of the kettle - where the heat source is, and its coolest at the surface.
The act of stirring agitates the wort and causes some of that hot wort from below the surface to rise to the top and mix with the cooler wort, hence the rise in temperature ...
4
Don't do it. They are not meant to be heated. You could heat it before hand and put it into an insulated cooler, and that would hold the heat for a long time.
4
I have shipped much more fragile patient biological samples (which is what yeast are) from Mexico to the US for research purposes. One big issue is if they get caught up in customs. Our samples of course were red flagged because we said what they were and had all the paperwork ready and with the package (seriously don't they have anything better to do). We ...
Only top voted, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible
