Fermentation temps

My first brew was put into the fermenting bucket Tuesday night around 8. This was an extract kit with Nottingham ale yeast. It has been bubbling fine but with our temperature dropping quickly the ambient temperature is about 64-66 degrees. The bubbling has subsided quite a bit since the temperature drop.

I am just wondering if I should bring it into a slightly warmer area or if I should just let it do it's thing. I know the airlock isnt always indicative of what's actually going on inside the bucket. Thanks in advance.

Unless the ambient temps get down to the low 50's, I feel like you'll be fine. I've definitely fermented with Nottingham at 63-64 ambient temp and everything went well.

Ok. I guess I'm just being a paranoid noob.

I'm not relaxing with a home brew yet. I'm going to have to make due with some magic hat.

Hi, in addition, can someone best explain "ambient" temperature to me?
I'm doing a primary fermentation right now (1 full day in) and it's doing it's thing very well. I just bought a thermometer an hour ago to put in the closet that I'm doing the fermenting in, and the temp reads 58 degrees in there. I know for a fact that the temp will remain between 55 and 65 in that closet. Being that I'm fermenting an English Chestnut Brown Ale, is this OK? And again, what does "ambient temperature" mean? Thank you!

I would during fermentation, but pull it out to around 65 after the krausen drops.And most important it depends what your yeast is.
Ambient temps is the actual room temp,temps can be 5-10 warmer during fermentation activity inside the carboy.

ambient temp means just whatever the surrounding area/space temp is where your putting your stuff or whatever. Room temp however is a standarized temp at 68-70 F
I think you want to be around 60-65 to get a better ferment going. but it will work there just take longer. Lagers you usually ferment at a low temp or cold ferment as they say

Ambient temp is the temperature that your "fermentation chamber" is set. That would be the air temp around the fermenter.

The temp to be concerned with is the temp of the liquid. The beer will usually be roughly 10 degrees warmer than the area you are fermenting in.

I use a thermowell in my fermenter which measures the temp of the liquid inside the conical. I could care less what the ambient temp is so long as my beer is at the preferred fermentation temp.

For future reference 55-65 is a huge jump in temps. If you can I would look into maintaining a steady controlled temp. I keep my ales at 59 degrees for the first three weeks, and after harvesting the yeast I gradually raise the temp about 1 degree per day until I hit 64 for my diacytal rest.

chaos2984 said:

ambient temp means just whatever the surrounding area/space temp is where your putting your stuff or whatever. Room temp however is a standarized temp at 68-70 F
I think you want to be around 60-65 to get a better ferment going. but it will work there just take longer. Lagers you usually ferment at a low temp or cold ferment as they say

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Thank you. Just to clarify (I'm sorry, I just don't want to do anything wrong), since the thermometer is right next to my carboy and reads 58 degrees, that's my ambient temp?

So you think I should try to get it up to 60 degrees near the carboy (ambient temp) for an English Brown Ale?

If your thermometer is reading 58, then chances are your beer is around 65. That's just fine so long as you can maintain that temp.

Im shure its fine, ive used nottingham in that temp dozens of times with good results although ive had reallly good results using it lower than my averge temps as an observation.

well ive noticed with my stick on temp guage. I've got about a 1-2 degree's above ambient temp in the room. Im starting my 2nd brew today and im gonna ferment around 55 on it. Im brewing octoberfest german style with a liquid octoberfest yeast

Just to add in my own question... from other answers it sounds like my first batch will be fine fermenting at 59-61F (Read from the fermometer strip attached to the side of the glass carboy).

My question is, will this slow down the fermentation, or produce different flavors(as I understand is the case for too warm fermentation)? The fermentation has been very active for about 4 days now, though did take about 36 hours to really get going

Thanks for the reply! I don't remember the yeast off the top of o my head, but it is not a wheat beer. I checked it out when I got it and the recommended temp is 65-70F, and also said it does not perform well below 62F, which I have been nearly the entire time, but it seems to be fermenting incredibly actively.

You will be the judge of that,if not at first make shure you have some conditioning for a few months to check out its potential.

I'm glad I found this thread as I was about to post a similar question.

When you see temperature ranges listed for yeast, or fermentation temps on recipes on this site, are those temperatures referencing ambient temp or the actual liquid temp?

How accurate are the stick on thermometers you attach to the carboys? I Thieved a sample tonight and the digital probe I stuck in the sample read almost 10 degrees higher than the stick on thermometer on the carboy.