Fermenting Temperature

Hi all!

As opposed to buying a fridge specifically for the purpose of brewing, I've been just keeping the house under 72 degrees Fahrenheit and it's been working well so far.

I was planning on making more mead, and cider for that matter, but the house has cooled down a bit to 66. Now, after reviewing this website:

http://www.gotmead.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=625&Itemid=42

with information regarding temperature ranges for yeast, is it best to keep the yeast at a certain temperature, or is it ok if the numbers fudge a bit towards the cooler end of their spectrums during the brewing process?

its fine if they go a little cool.
and you can always use a brew belt, or heating pad on a timer if it gets too cold.

more than anything, stagger the nutrient additions, aerate at pitching and degas the first week of primary, every day!

Good stuff, thanks. I'll have to do something like those staggered nutrient additions and degassing one of these days.

At least one thing on that chart is out of date. The temperature range for ICV-D47 has been changed to 59-68F on the Lallemand site. I'm not surprised because we've been saying for years that above about 72F, it tends to produce paint thinner.

Generally speaking, cooler is better when fermenting meads. While there are exceptions (dark berry mels for example) staying closer to the lower end of the temperature range produces better results. At 66F, you should have no problems.

While it is possible to produce great mead at high temperatures, the yeast selection and recipe are crucial - otherwise can you get a fusel-reeking, phenolic disaster.

Medsen

I'm a week into a yeast experiment. I'm fermeting 8 differnt lallemand wine yeasts in my attic and it has been much colder up there than I had planned. I've taken ambient and fermentation temperatures everyday and they've been a few degrees below 60. They seem a to be going a little slower than I'm used to, but the gravity drops every day, they're past the 1/3rd sugar break and they taste cleaner than my meads that are almost 2 years old.

what is degassing? I have been swirling/shaking it every couple days and thats seems to drive out huge amounts of co2 up to the surface and the blow off tube goes nuts for a few seconds........Is this degassing?