First brew temperature worries

[Bradenbrewa97]

G'day, first time brew put on lunch time Monday, just the coopers lager brew enhancer 1, 2 days in now temperature is around 16 degrees only place I have to store my fermenter is in the shed, I panicked early and opened the Krausen collar yesterday for a smell and got blasted with the smell of flat beer almost in gas form I assumed as it was a strong smell of beer it was fine but is the temperature going to majorly affect this brew ? The colour is still fine and golden I wrapped a blanket around the fermenter too, any advice would be great cheers ! 

[Beerlust]

Hi BradenBrewA97, & welcome to the forum.

The original series lager kit actually comes with an ale strain of yeast & is better served by fermenting the brew at a higher temp. 16°C is pushing the comfort zone this yeast likes to work in, before creating a situation where the lowish temperature may stall the ferment. Do your best to get the wort temp up to approx. 20°C as best you can, & try to maintain that throughout the primary ferment.

Cheers & best of luck with the brew.

Lusty.

[Bradenbrewa97]

Cheers mate appreciate it,  I'll try get that temp up ! 

[Scottie]

Hey Braden

My First Brew, the Coopers OS Lager was brewed in Tasmania in September. It was brewed in the family room, heat pump, and the FV temperature was between 16^oC and 18^oC. The brew hit its Final Gravity in 4 days, I had it in the bottle after 8 days and was drinking some two weeks later.

As Lusty says 16^oC is at the lower end, however don't panic as I reckon it will ferment OK. I bumped the heat pump temperature setting up and eventually the temp went to 18^oC.              Considering you got a blast of CO2 I'd say it is fermenting, do you have foam or condensation on the inside of the lid?

 

Cheers & Beers

Scottie

Valley Brew

 

[BlackSands]

You need to insulate your fermenter.  Fermentation generates enough heat on it's own to keep it nice and cosy at cooler ambient temps when the fermenter is well insulated.  I wrap mine in a sleeping bag.  Current brew has been stable at 20 - 21ºC for a week now while night/day temps have ranged from 7ºC - 16ºC.  

[DonPolo]

I’m confused. During summer I tried keeping my brews down to 16-18 degrees because I saw advice that this what you do even though the Coopers instructions say that the Ale yeast should be kept between 21-27 degrees. They all seemed to turn out fine but now I’m wondering if they could have turned out better. 

[Otto Von Blotto]

I'm confused too. What temperature were you thinking would make them turn out better? 

By the way, optimal temps for (most) ales is 18-20, not 16-18.

[BlackSands]

Ideal temperatures can vary by a few degrees from strain to strain:

 

Here's what Fermentis have to say about a couple of their more popular ale yeasts:

US-05

FERMENTATION: ideally at 18-28°C (64-82°F)   

S-04

FERMENTATION: ideally 15-20°C (59-68°F)

 

And Danstar/Lallemand:

The optimal temperature range for Nottingham ale yeast when producing traditional styles is 10°C (50°F)* to 22°C (72°F)

 

And also Mangrovejacks:

M44

For best results ferment at 18-23ºC 

M42

For best results, ferment at 16-22ºC

 

[Otto Von Blotto]

Ideally 18-28...10 degrees is a pretty wide scope. They do vary but one thing remains constant, 18-20 falls under all their ranges.

[DonPolo]

On 6/17/2018 at 12:28 AM, Otto Von Blotto said:

I'm confused too. What temperature were you thinking would make them turn out better? 

By the way, optimal temps for (most) ales is 18-20, not 16-18.

Yes perhaps I confused myself. Jumping from post to post I got the impression that 16 or even lower was ideal. But looking back it was probably when I was brewing a European Lager can.  I understand that it comes with a true lager yeast and that you are supposed to brew at a lower temperature. Makes my life a lot easier if I don't have to keep ale batches lower than 20 degrees. So is there a major difference if it ferments at 20-24? After all the instructions say 21-27.

[Otto Von Blotto]

Generally you get more esters at higher fermentation temps. Fermenting lower is cleaner in that sense, so the hops and malts are more at the forefront than esters. I don't like esters much so I ferment lowish at 18 for most ales. Stable temps are important as well, yeast generally don't like fluctuations and could potentially throw off flavours as a result.

I suspect the instructions say that because it's essentially failsafe. It doesn't mean that it's the optimal temp though. I sure wouldn't be fermenting any ales above about 23-24 degrees at the most. 

[DonPolo]

2 hours ago, Otto Von Blotto said:

Generally you get more esters at higher fermentation temps. Fermenting lower is cleaner in that sense, so the hops and malts are more at the forefront than esters. I don't like esters much so I ferment lowish at 18 for most ales. Stable temps are important as well, yeast generally don't like fluctuations and could potentially throw off flavours as a result.

I suspect the instructions say that because it's essentially failsafe. It doesn't mean that it's the optimal temp though. I sure wouldn't be fermenting any ales above about 23-24 degrees at the most. 

Brilliant. I dropped my latest IPA batch down to about 16-18 with some tap water in the sink. It's being going for about a week now so I'll just drain the sink, let it rise up to about 20-22 until it reaches FG. Then I was thinking of letting it 'clean up' for a few days and then put the FV on the south facing balcony overnight where the temp will drop down to about -1 then bottle in the morning. 

[Otto Von Blotto]

Yeah, anywhere after 3-4 days is fine to let them rise a few degrees to finish off and clean up quicker. That's when I normally raise mine and they hit FG in under 7 days.

I doubt your brew will get to -1 or near it overnight but it will still cool it down somewhat. I still think a minimum of 4-5 days is better for cold crashing. I normally give them a week.

[DonPolo]

2 minutes ago, Otto Von Blotto said:

Yeah, anywhere after 3-4 days is fine to let them rise a few degrees to finish off and clean up quicker. That's when I normally raise mine and they hit FG in under 7 days.

I doubt your brew will get to -1 or near it overnight but it will still cool it down somewhat. I still think a minimum of 4-5 days is better for cold crashing. I normally give them a week.

I agree that the wort will not get down to -1 or anything like it. In fact I wonder if it is worth doing for 12 hours. I don't have a fridge to do a real cold crash. And if I left it on the balcony during the day, it the air temperature would probably rise to about 12 degrees and I understand the fluctuation may not be good for it. I could cover the FV with a tarp to stop any indirect light getting at it but that wouldn't assist at all with the air temp. Just trying to squeeze the last little bit out of the process but probably not worth it.

[Otto Von Blotto]

It's probably not worth it for 12 hours. It won't really do much. Fluctuations at that point aren't really an issue, it's during active fermentation that you want to keep it stable as possible (other than ramp ups to finish off). It's good to keep it stable afterwards too but it won't cause any off flavours or anything if it does fluctuate a bit after fermentation has finished.

[Bradenbrewa97]

Cheers guys I appreciate the feed back as I'm brand new to brewing haha ! There is plenty of foam and condensation, The blanket has kept the temps stable during the day at around 18-19 degrees and 16-18 at night, it's starting to get a little warmer had a lot of rain when I put the brew on so the temperature was colder than usual where I live, 

Thanks again guys this forums great ! 

 

[Marty_G]

17 hours ago, Otto Von Blotto said:

it's during active fermentation that you want to keep it stable as possible

Quick question Otto ... how much of an improvement on flavour will there be ... the reason for the question .... of the dozen brews I have put down in the last few months only 2 were crap, improved dramatically with bottle aging,  because they completed way way too fast ... so with low and slow just how critical is it to keep temps stable ... does a change of a few degrees rise and fall on the 24 hour cycle over say a week of ferment have a dramatic impact on taste ... because every other brew i have done have tasted pretty darn good to me ... 

[Otto Von Blotto]

It probably depends on the yeast strain a bit, some may be more tolerant to temperature swings than others. It doesn't matter what the temp is, stable is always better than swinging. You may find a beer fermented at a stable 23 tastes better than one fermented where the temp swings between 16 and 25 or whatever. There's nothing wrong with a quick fermentation as such, but if it's quick because the temp is too high then it will likely taste rubbish at first and may improve with ageing like you experienced. 

I did notice an improvement in my beers when I started using proper temperature control though. The ones I did before were good, but the ones done with temp control were better, cleaner flavoured with less esters and other shitty flavours.

[DonPolo]

20 hours ago, Otto Von Blotto said:

It's probably not worth it for 12 hours. It won't really do much. Fluctuations at that point aren't really an issue, it's during active fermentation that you want to keep it stable as possible (other than ramp ups to finish off). It's good to keep it stable afterwards too but it won't cause any off flavours or anything if it does fluctuate a bit after fermentation has finished.

So I'm guessing dry hopping would count towards the time of 'cleaning up'? Or do the hops have an effect on the yeast activity? Might as well kill two birds with one stone if possible. As far as the 'natural cold crash' on the balcony is concerned, I suppose I'll never know until I try. I would imagine that if I left it on the balcony, the temp would gradually drop down over four days. I could see the wort temp dropping to say 7 degrees night one then up again to about 10 during the day, down to 3 night two then up again to say 6 day two etc.  Either way, do you dry hop before or during the cold crash? Just looking at some alternatives.

[Otto Von Blotto]

Usually I dry hop at the same time I begin bringing the temp down to cold crash but that's usually because I forget to earlier. Usually I give them a couple of days before the cold crash starts. I'm not sure if  dry hops affect yeast activity, certainly I've never heard that they do.

For this current batch I've thrown in some oak chips today and will dry hop tomorrow. Saturday I will drop the temp down, then keg the following Saturday or Sunday.

Cheers

Kelsey

[karlos_1984]

I dry hopped a 12 ltr batch with 50g of Centennial and Citra (25g of each) 5 days ago (after FG) and it's been at 16-18 degrees. I've just dropped the temp down to 0 degrees for a cold crash. Will a few extra days or a week at most give it grassy flavours or will it be right. I just checked it then and it smells amazing. Or should I get it in bottles ASAP? 

[DonPolo]

1 hour ago, Otto Von Blotto said:

Usually I dry hop at the same time I begin bringing the temp down to cold crash but that's usually because I forget to earlier. Usually I give them a couple of days before the cold crash starts. I'm not sure if  dry hops affect yeast activity, certainly I've never heard that they do.

For this current batch I've thrown in some oak chips today and will dry hop tomorrow. Saturday I will drop the temp down, then keg the following Saturday or Sunday.

Cheers

Kelsey

Gosh oak chips. A whole new world opens up! Just trying get the beer to taste old school from when they used wooden barrels or specifically for the flavour? Is the flavour similar to the vanilla notes that red wines take on in French/American oak? How do you control for possible infection from the oak chips?

[Otto Von Blotto]

No idea, first time I've tried them. I'm using them in my red ale as I think it's a good beer that might suit the flavour they give. I have French oak, medium toasted whatever that means. I haven't done anything except just throw them in, I guess you can steep them in vodka or spray with starsan though.

[porschemad911]

Have you tried many oaked commercial beers Kelsey? Some of the ones from HopDog in Nowra and Nomad in Sydney were really, really nice.

[Otto Von Blotto]

I've had the Innis and Gunn one but that's it. Didn't mind it though. Still got about half a carton of it left. I expect this beer will turn out a bit different to that one though.