Secondary Temp... how cool?

I'm brewing a pale ale with WL001 yeast. This Sunday, it will be 2 weeks in the primary. My next step is to transfer to secondary and dry hop. It's been in the primary at 68 degrees (in a storage tote full of water and swapping out ice jugs twice a day). I'm assuming the fermentation is complete (after taking a gravity reading). I shall see Sunday.

I'm trying to figure out what temp for the secondary.

• Should I continue with the water bath and ice jugs to maintain the 68 degrees?
• I have a pilsner in it's secondary in my temp controlled freezer. It's at 39 degrees. Should I put the secondary in with the Pilsner?
• Or should I just leave it @ room temp in my house which would be around 78-80 degrees?

Thanks for the help!

Ale yeast like to ferment fast and if the temperature is not controlled will cause the temperature during the fast part of the ferment to shoot up which leads to off flavors in the beer. Temperature control for the first few days helps to regulate the speed at which the yeast devour the sugars and with that helps to reduce the compounds that are produced at higher temperature.

Once most of the sugars are gone, you can let the temperature rise with no ill effects and I think these warmer temps help the yeast complete their ferment. I would let your beer come to room temperature and personally, I wouldn't even bother moving it to secondary but rather just dry hop in the primary fermenter. I've done this with good success but the ferment should be complete before you add hops or the outgassing of CO2 may carry away the aroma that you are striving to give your beer.

If I'm using a swamp cooler, what would be a good temp to let my water get to once the major fermentation is done? Im trying to keep my water at 60 F. Would letting it get up to 65 during week 2-2.5 be warm enough to allow the yeast to work or is that too cool?

Generally you want to keep the BEER inside the fermenter within it's optimum temp range, and without much variation, during the first part of fermentation when the bulk of conversion is happening.

After that you want to gently raise the temp some to keep the yeast going and to promote cleaning up. This doesn't have to take very long, though. Once you're at terminal FG, just raise the temp to something like room temp (high 60's, low 70's) and let it sit for a few days, maybe 3. At this point you can dry-hop, too.

Before you bottle or keg, though, I'd cold-crash it by putting it in a ~40* environment (something above freezing, but cold) for at least a few days to drop everything out and clear it up.

MistFM said:

If I'm using a swamp cooler, what would be a good temp to let my water get to once the major fermentation is done? Im trying to keep my water at 60 F. Would letting it get up to 65 during week 2-2.5 be warm enough to allow the yeast to work or is that too cool?

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What yeast?

Kingfish said:

What yeast?

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Safeale US - 05 dry packet

MistFM said:

Safeale US - 05 dry packet

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You should be just fine.


Recommended fermentation temperature: 15C – 24C (59-75F).
http://www.fermentis.com/fo/pdf/HB/EN/Safale_US-05_HB.pdf

Yes, generally a raise of 5 degrees is favorable after the bulk of fermentation is over.