smoked porter brewing a little warm

just finished up a smoked porter last night and it is starting to brew a little warm.
the recipie that I used I don't have offhand but remember fairly close
3lbs racuhmalt
2oz 80l crystal malt
8oz black malt
2oz chocolate malt
5lbs dark dme
6aau golding 60min boil
3aau willamette 30min
3aau golding 5min
wyeast 1098 british ale which I put into a starter before pitching.
starting gravity was right at 1.058

only thing I added was 1tsp of yeast nutrient outside of the directions.

finished up about 4 in the morning and by the time I woke up at 11am it had a nice layer of foam on the top but the little stick on thermometer is reading between 76* to not reading at all. it is sitting in the same right about 2 feet from my mead that is reading right now at 68*. what is causing this high temp and is it something I should be worried about? the recipe calls for 68* brewing temps and Ican't figure out how to get the temps down either as I have no A/C in this house yet. I've tried putting a fan right in front of it full speed but it doesn't make much difference. ambient temps in the house are right at 68-70*

donkey said:

what is causing this high temp and is it something I should be worried about? the recipe calls for 68* brewing temps and Ican't figure out how to get the temps down either as I have no A/C in this house yet. I've tried putting a fan right in front of it full speed but it doesn't make much difference. ambient temps in the house are right at 68-70*

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Take a t-shirt, soak it in cold water, and use it to cover up your carboy/bucket. Take your fan and point it at your wet t-shirt covered fermenter. It will easily drop your temp at least a few degrees. I did this with my ESB last week, and it held everything at a perfect 68 F.

Just make sure that you're soaking that t-shirt on a regular basis. The water will evaporate fairly quickly. Just keep doing this until your krauesin drops, and then the beer will stabilize at ambient temperature. During the violent phase of fermentation, a lot of heat is generated. Doing this trick keeps things in check a bit.

I really want to build a fermentation chiller, but I just haven't built up the ambition to find someone to help me transport a big sheet of extruded polystyrene insulation as of yet. That will probably be my next homebrewing project of note...

Is there going to be any harm by these high temps?
Also just as a side question is it normal for fermentation to start this quick? I have never (out of 3 previous batches) had it start up in less then 12 hours the quickest being the a wheat beer. though I have never used a starter before and even here only used a 22oz beer bottle for the starter

donkey said:

Is there going to be any harm by these high temps?
Also just as a side question is it normal for fermentation to start this quick? I have never (out of 3 previous batches) had it start up in less then 12 hours the quickest being the a wheat beer. though I have never used a starter before and even here only used a 22oz beer bottle for the starter

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As for fermentation start in less than 12 hours...it's very normal. When using a starter, and pitched at optimum temperatures, fermentation can start very very fast. The sooner the better.

As for any harm...higher fermentation temps tend to give the beer a stronger alcohol taste. I think fusel alcohols are more readily produced once you approach 75 F. Allowing the bottled beer to condition a few extra weeks at colder temperatures may help mellow out this taste. One other consideration is that the yeast are possibly stressed from working overtime at those high temps, so if you planned on washing and harvesting the yeast, I'm not sure how good of an ide that would be. But, I'll defer to more experienced brewers on that one, because I'm not 100% sure about that.

Donkey, did you get that the heat is from the yeast working?

The yeasts are "burning sugar" to make CO2, just like you do when running to the keg. Alcohol is yeast 'fat', from feeding healthy yeast.

understood I just have never had one do this to me before. usually the temps have been very easy to controll and stay right around 68-72* and it was fairly easy to adjust the temps from there. so was a little shocked to find that the temps went up that high and that it wasn't that easy to get them in check. as it sits now though they are just fine hovering at 68*

greg thank you for the shirt idea though as that seemed to help.