Fermentation in smoking garage

Hello, I have been away from homebrewing for a small amount of time and in the spirit of the new year I have started brewing every 2 weeks. But this is a side note.

I have been working on a session beer and it's close to time for a crash cool. Since I am in Ohio, current weather would allow me to stick my carboy in the garage and be on my way. (It's also worth noting I want to start my secondary crash cooling so I can get my primary of the same beer up to 80ish degrees) My problem with the garage tactic is I am currently living with my brother and parents who all smoke in the garage. I couldn't locate any information on whether or not this will affect the beer. So I am asking here: If I stick my secondary carboy in the garage will the cigarette smoke affect the flavor? I would rather KNOW than try and learn the hard way. Thanks guys!

Your airlock will keep air/smoke out of your fermenter... but you should rethink bringing your fermenting beer temp anywhere near 80 degrees.

Usually, I would think the same thing, but I am using WLP565 and all of the information I have read about that yeast says it's happy around there. But I have had good results with this yeast at a lower temp. I am going to have top slap an airlock on secondary then (I am using aluminum foil atm)

Even with foil I highly doubt that the smoke would do anything to the beer. I would be more concerned about wild yeast/bacteria messing with your beer than smoke. If you are that concerned about the smoke why not ask them to at least crack the garage door for ventilation. If you're brave
enough ask them to smoke outside until you get an airlock and or you are ready to package your beer.

Well, they usually keep the door cracked. I actually boiled a stopper and airlock yesterday and plugged up the carboy, now my Session India Pail Saison (SIPS) is sitting in the garage, clearing up. If I am lucky I will be able to keg this at the end of the week! It was clearing up pretty well in my room as we have the vent blocked, but I wanted to induce chill haze.

Dodonkious said:

I actually boiled a stopper and airlock yesterday

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You boiled your airlock

That's what the spray bottle of Star San is for, and it won't deform plastic. Two spritzes, wait 30 seconds, you're good to go.

Why are you worried about this? If cig smoke can affect your beer you've got bigger problems.

Meaning you would have to be open fermenting.

My Starsan spray bottle is busted, so I just improvised, the plastic was fine, didn't warp it at all. I was worried about damaging it, but I have 4 others in case something happened to that one.

I was confident the cigarette smoke wouldn't bother it, but I was just being cautious.

The smoke would have to go backwards thru the airlock. Not possible unless it is open or not sealed.

If the airlock is bubbling out, you can be sure smoke isn't going in.

Maybe suggest that they use a vaporizer instead of smoking.

I was using tin foil for a while since the sanitizer got sucked into the brew from my airlock when I cold crashed, but the guy at my LHBS said to just use a solid stopper with no hole in the top. Have been doing that since and it works great. If you are going to ferment that hight (80f) I would seriously worry about fusel alcohol production. It's a "headache" to deal with

Nothing better than a homebrew and a 1964 Padron Maduro Cigar while waiting for the mash to finish.:rockin:

Just one note... Crash-cooling beer is often pulling *IN* air due to the change in temperature of the air in the headspace. Depending how much air is in the headspace, you could pull some air [& smoke] through. Likewise, you could be pulling in other pathogens.

I'd just make sure the airlock is full of vodka or starsan rather than just H2O, as the amount of air pulled will be negligible, and the main goal is avoiding contaminants like wild yeast.

But I thought I'd mention it, because you *will* pull air in.

Bwar, that's why I recommended a solid stopper. When I use that no air gets in. I can hear the suction releasing when I take it off. I feel like it's the best method.

Update: It didn't affect the taste of the beer at all, I actually found my bung after the fact. I decided that the beer wasn't going to get any more clear and kegged it up. I did end up drinking it a little young, but today (It's been in the keg 3 days now.) it's very delicious. I need a wort cooler because as far as I can tell I ended up getting way too much bitterness from waiting for this to cool.