kevinb

Recipes 

I am going to brew a porter this weekend with Safale S-04 yeast. The manufacturers site says fermentation up to 75°F is OK. Since my basement is about 70°F - 72°F, I suspect my fermentation temp will be close to the 75°F. Does anyone have experience with this yeast at this temp? Does it have strong fruit esters? I am trying to avoid the need for a swamp cooler.

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Kevin - One Arm Brewery

"People who drink light ‘beer’ don’t like the taste of beer; they just like to pee a lot."

icanbenchurcat

Recipes 

I live in GA where it is hot as hell right now. I keep the temp as cool as I can, but frequently hits 73-75... Sometimes 78... I just have to compensate with more time to ferment it out. I don't get any off flavors unless I'm going high gravity. Anything slightly below 75 should be fine IMHO

SilverZero

Recipes 

I would think your fermentation vessel might actually get a bit higher than ambient. Yeast kick out some heat, strangely enough - up to 10 degrees above ambient is the number I've seen around here. Might want to think about a swamp cooler setup (bucket of water, t-shirt, and a fan).

onthekeg

Recipes 

I prefer this yeast in the 65 range ambient. You more than likely will have esters, but they aren't all that bad. S-04 is a tasty yeast, and its the one I cut my teeth on years ago. I used it for pretty much everything in the 60-65 range, but I did have a beer that fermented almost overnight at 70 deg. I drank it, it was good, but more esters than I preferred.
Its fast, and drops fast too.

Rubes

Recipes 

My experience fermenting S-04 at high temps was not a good one. I made Biermuncher's Oktoberfast, and fermented between 68-70, as that was what temperature my basement was at the time. The beer had a terrible apple cidery taste. I can only assume that this was esters from the yeast fermenting so warm.

Transamguy77

Recipes 

I made a Dead guy clone and accidentally fermented at 80 (that was bucket temp ambient was 75) on the first day and ended up with a harsh alcohol burn, I would recommend trying to keep the temp low.

ChessRockwell

Recipes 

+1 to this! I made an IPA with 04 fermented at 68-70 ambient, had the most awful overly yeasty taste to it. All my IPA's brewed at this temp with 05 have never had this problem.

If you don't have a way to keep the temp down I'd strongly suggest going with 05.

kevinb

Recipes 

I am brewing a porter, is there a big difference in the 04 vs 05 for this beer? Does the 05 have less Esters at 70 - 72 degrees? Not sure what fruit esters will be like in a porter.

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Kevin - One Arm Brewery

"People who drink light ‘beer’ don’t like the taste of beer; they just like to pee a lot."

Grantman1

Recipes 

S-04 tends to generate a lot of heat as it hits peak fermentation - a good bit higher than ambient temps - I've heard some people claim up to 8 degrees higher. I had mine at about 64 degrees ambient and still couldn't control the wort temp - gave off too many esters for my liking. Personally I wouldn't use this one without at least a swamp cooler. If you are going dry yeast, US-05 should be fine though. Good luck!

I will say that S-04 is fun to watch. If you ferment in a carboy you can watch the insanity inside!

KISS Brew

Recipes 

Absolutely. US-05 will be fairly clean even as high as 70, but S-04 will throw significant esters.

You should really consider a simple swamp cooler setup, or anything really, to control your temperature. I've always had better success with beers fermented in the high 60s than low 70s.

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