Unless you're in the desert with no airconditioning, do not refrigerate it. Yeast have temperature tolerances just like people do & if they're forced to try to survive outside those tolerances too long, they'll likely produce some unpleasant off flavours; too far outside those tolerances & they'll either go dormant, or die... Thus ending your fermentation. All standard home refrigerators used to store food are too cold & simply cannot be adjusted to a temp high enough for wine yeasts. Average best temp for wine yeasts (excluding a couple strains used in white/ice wine production) is about 68-70 degrees F. BUT, your fermentation should do just fine from about 65-80. The room temp where I keep my fermentations is right about 73 degrees F. Another part of the temperature thing is to try to keep it as constant as possible. A fluctuation of a degree or three over the course of a couple days is no big deal, but much more than that over a short period of time or quite often might stress the yeast a bit & stressed yeast can (and often do) produce off flavours. I keep all my fermentations in a closet. I do not have air conditioning. I keep a thermometer in there at carbouy level & have a couple of stick-on thermometer strips that are stuck on the carbouys themselves. This lets me monitor both the ambient air temp & the closest thing to the actual temp of the liquid (which is cooler than the air). I check the them when it gets hot & when I think about it. So far, no problems with heat in almost 4 years. I hope you find this info useful. Regards, GF.
Last edited by gratus fermentatio; 08-18-2008 at 05:13 PM.
Reason: spelling correction
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What is Considered a "Warm Place"?
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