ferm temp

I just bought a new box beer from the LHBS. It says the to primary at 48 to 58 degrees. Then secondary at 35 to 42 degree. How crucial is the primary tempurature? I can't get any higher than 43-44 degrees. Is this too cold for the primary?

What's the beer/recipe/yeast? I'm assuming a lager of some variety.

Info please. The obvious assumption is that you are making a lager. Unless you live in an ice-cave, why can you not get the primary temps above 43 degrees????

cwaite37 said:

I just bought a new box beer from the LHBS. It says the to primary at 48 to 58 degrees. Then secondary at 35 to 42 degree. How crucial is the primary tempurature? I can't get any higher than 43-44 degrees. Is this too cold for the primary?

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As was mentioned, lagers are very particular about temperature. 44 is too cold for primary, and you probably wont' get it to ferment. What yeast strain do you have? We can help you come up with some alternatives.

http://www.brewersbestkits.com/pdf/1060_Maibock.pdf

Brewer's Best kit above.

The problem is my beer fridge in the barn seems to top out at a balmy 44. My old farmhouse basement that always stays "cool" hangs right around 65, which is too high as I understand it?

Which yeast strain do you have? That's the important thing to know.

uhhhhh Saflager w-34/70 ??

Sorry for the moron look on my face but I'm learning.

Edit: it says on the package 'Dry Lager Yeast'

cwaite37 said:

uhhhhh Saflager w-34/70 ??

Sorry for the moron look on my face but I'm learning.

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Good thing we can't see your face...................

Anyway, that's definitely a lager yeast. http://www.fermentis.fr/FO/pdf/HB/EN/Saflager_W-3470_HB.pdf

It sounds like 12 C (53 degrees) will be impossible for you. You can try two alternatives. One is to go buy some ale yeast. That's what I'd do. Buy some ale yeast and ferment it as close to 68 degrees as you can. It won't be an actual maibock (which is a lager) but it will be a tasty beer and trouble free.

If you want to proceed with this a lager, you could try putting a bin with cold water in your basement and some ice bottles/frozen water bottles and pur your fermenter in it and try to keep it at lager temperatures for 2 weeks or so. It's not easy, but it's possible.

After the fermentation is over, you can rack the beer to a carboy and then put it in the fridge with either yeast.

I just realized that it required this today. So i am going to give the fridge till tomorrow to see what it does after 24 hours. If not, I'll prolly just do the higher temp thing.

The funny thing is, the directions say that it can be fermented at 64 to 72 as an ale. No secondary and the yeast will do fine. It will just be more of an ale.

Thanks for the quick info.

cwaite37 said:

I just realized that it required this today. So i am going to give the fridge till tomorrow to see what it does after 24 hours. If not, I'll prolly just do the higher temp thing.

The funny thing is, the directions say that it can be fermented at 64 to 72 as an ale. No secondary and the yeast will do fine. It will just be more of an ale.

Thanks for the quick info.

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If I was going to do it as an ale, I'd not use the saflager. I think it might be a bit estery and sulfury at high temperatures- I'd go with a dry ale yeast like nottingham or S05, or even S04 for that beer.

Farenheit or celsius?

Farenheit. After 24 hours it looks like I can get 46 degrees Farenheit.

Now that the weather is a little colder, my basement (old drafty farmhouse) is hanging right around 58F. Will it cause a problem if the temp fuctuates between 55F and 60F? Is the up and down ok?

cwaite37 said:

Now that the weather is a little colder, my basement (old drafty farmhouse) is hanging right around 58F. Will it cause a problem if the temp fuctuates between 55F and 60F? Is the up and down ok?

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It's not good. Could you still submerge the fermenter in a water bath in a cooler or trashcan, so that the extra water will "insulate" the fermenter, and keep it from those temperature extremes? It takes a LONG time for a water surrounded fermenter to change temps, so a water bath with stabilize the temperature fluctuations' effect on the beer.

Yes I can put it in a waterbath. As I understand it, the temp fluctuating a couple degrees is ok, but only if it is really slow?

Just use an ale yeast dude. Fermenting requires equipment wich you clearly don't have or a very cool basement that will not have swings in temperature (something like a COLD cellar). You also have to account for lagering: do you have a spare fridge or place for a big clunk carboy in your fridge ? And are you okay with dropping the temperature on your fridge low enough to lager ? And waiting a few weeks ? I hate to recommend it since it has been recalled recently, but Notty can take low temps to approximate a lager. Or US-05. Just ferment these at the lowest temperature recommended and they will finish clean and crisp with no need for diacetyl rests or any of that fun stuff.

I really don't know who the kit makers are targetting when they put out canned, hopped LME kits with a yeast that needs lagering. 99% of the time, if the buyers have lagering capabilities, they will also have PM or AG capability and thus won't need hopped extract.

Thanks for the input. I can do the lagering. Easily. That is the only reason I'm fighting the primary so much. And I have AG capabilities, but I'm very new to the whole deal, so I kinda wanted to understand the basic process first.

Calibrate your thermometer and do a few dry runs beforehand: how much ice do you need to add to your water bath with water at beer level to get equilibrium ? What temperature is your tap water ? You can also do some rough calculations using the volume of water relative to the beer. You need to know how fast you can drop the temperature (or increase it) if something goes wrong. And baby the beer during primary fermentation.

With ales I feel you can just ballpark it: ferment on the cool side, add more ice if necessary by touching the carboy/bucket and comparing to water temp. Lagers are more finicky with temperature swings since they are more delicate: I would use as much water as possible in order to reduce swings. And if your basement is drafty, consider cutting on the drafts in order to have your ambient temperature stay roughly the same.

The worse that can happen is that you will learn something

jfr1111 said:

The worse that can happen is that you will learn something

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You are correct. My basement isn't too drafty, but we heat with wood and don't use the furnace much, so the what few drafts there are will affect the temp more than normal. I have a perfect place where I can set it up basically with a water trickle that will keep it right at 55F +/- 1F. And the lagering can easily be done in my shop fridge with the door locked and a sign that says "stay the f*** out"

I also heat with wood, so I know your plight. Temperatures in my living room can swing from 19C to 28C in winter due to our big windows facing south and the heat from the furnace. Luckily, the furnace is not in the basement, so we have "cellar temps" down there almost year long.

Remember though that ambient and fermentation temps are two different things: during vigorous fermentation, the yeast will give off heat, so you need to shoot for a lower ambient/water bath temp than what you need as a fermentation temperature to compensate. You can probably buy a small digital thermometer that can monitor the temperature from outside the carboy/bucket (or inside it it is a probe). My experience with temperature strips from my "aquarium days" have been horrible. They aren't really reliable if you want precision.

Take care.