Tripel temp control

The title for this is a little deceiving.

I really have no way of actually controlling the temp of my brews. I made a makeshift swamp cooler out of a rolling cooler and some wet t-shirts in the past. But this time of year, temp in my basement crawlspace is pretty steady around 64 to 66 degrees all day long. So I brewed a tripel on about 72 hours ago. I would like to bring the carboy upstairs into my bathroom to raise the temp up to let the thing finish fermenting (I read this somewhere...but couldn't find it again). Anyhow, it's projected to be about 80, which means about 75 degrees in the house. Is moving it upstairs and raising the temp a bad idea? Also, I have natural sunlight in the bathroom, so I was thinking about putting a garbage bag over the carboy to keep the light out, but that might raise the temp even more?

I would leave it where it's at until fermentation is complete. Then bring it up stairs for secondary/conditioning.

I don't think bringing the beer upstairs to a warmer environment is a bad idea if you're going to let it sit for a long while (2+ months). If you plan on drinking it relatively soon, you're better off leaving it sit in the basement at cooler temps.

To better answer you question it would help for you to post what yeast you used and maybe O.G. and projected F.G.

Some of the Belgian abbey or trappist yeasts like warmer temps. I believe what you saw was someone raising the temp during fermentation to push the FG lower. Otherwise, I think Tripels can sometimes end up really sweet if they are under attenuated.

So, my advice would be to check your gravity level. If you gravity is < 1.010 then you probably will not gain much from warming it up. If the gravity is > 1.020 then you may want to warm it up and dry it out. 1.010-1.020 would be your decision and may depend on the recipe.

JBmadtown said:

To better answer you question it would help for you to post what yeast you used and maybe O.G. and projected F.G.

Some of the Belgian abbey or trappist yeasts like warmer temps. I believe what you saw was someone raising the temp during fermentation to push the FG lower. Otherwise, I think Tripels can sometimes end up really sweet if they are under attenuated.

So, my advice would be to check your gravity level. If you gravity is < 1.010 then you probably will not gain much from warming it up. If the gravity is > 1.020 then you may want to warm it up and dry it out. 1.010-1.020 would be your decision and may depend on the recipe.

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I have found this to be the case using the Wyeast 1388 Belgian strain - fermenting in the low to mid 60's it tends to stall out over 1.020 and when I move it to a temp of about 76-78 it finishes at about 1.005 - dependent of course on your mash temps and the fermentability of your wort.

You should definitely do it. I just got a real fermentation chamber and haven't used it for any belgian beers yet, but many books recommend doing this, including Brew Like a Monk. You should let it ferment at 66 for a week or two first, though.

i'm pretty sure i first got it from "brew like a monk" but i believe most belgian abbey's will pitch their yeast on the cool side, like lower 60s, then let the temp ramp up naturally with reports of duvel's fermenters getting up the 80s. I've usually tried to mimic this recently with good results, I've used both duvel's & westmalle's strains...although you need to let westmalle's phenolics to die down a little bit if you try it with that one. So my rec is to pitch in the low 60s, put a towel around the fermenter during active fermentation to allow temp to ramp up...when fermentation starts to really slow it down, bring it upstairs to sit in the warmer temps. My strong golden ale with 1388 took a 1094 og down to 1004 in two weeks.