High temps during Fermentation?

Ok, my first batch is bubblng away nicely in the closet. One question: The ambient temp in my apartment is around 78-80 degrees. How is that going to affect flavor? The batch is a red ale (William's brand American Red ale). I gather lagers want to age refrigerated. Do ales as well? Do I need some sort of refrigeration for the future if I'm going to try a Lager (which really what I want to do)? Do I need to suck it up and leave the AC blasting during primary/secondary? And what about this winter? My wife will, I'm sure, blast the heat, since the H/HW are included. Winter has been pretty brutal up here the last couple of years and now we don't have to pay for heat, I'm sure she's going to want to enjoy it.

Welcome to homebrewing! 78-80 degrees is definitely a bit high for almost every strain of beer yeast you can buy. Most ale strains work best around 65-72 degrees, and lager yeasts like even cooler temperatures. The yeast package label usually gives you a preferred temperature range. You could certainly crank up the A/C and get your apartment down to 68 degrees, but there are some cheaper solutions.

You can put a wet towel around your fermenter and put a fan next to it, blowing across the wet towel. You might consider using a mild sanitizing solution to wet the towel in order to prevent mold/mildew.

The other simple solution is an ice bath - just set the fermenter in a bathtub or bucket partially full of ice water and add ice once or twice a day.

A lot of homebrewers have a small refrigerator and an external temperature controller specifically used for fermentation, but that's a little more costly.

i just did some reading and the high temp will cause your beer to taste fruity(like my last and current batch)
my added question is when is it too late to cool it down before its a losed cause?

99expo said:

i just did some reading and the high temp will cause your beer to taste fruity(like my last and current batch)
my added question is when is it too late to cool it down before its a losed cause?

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That is really hard to say and varies. 75 degrees is the highest temp you want to ferment at, I prefer 72 degrees.

I've heard several times that the "estery", or fruity, taste develops in the first 12-24 hours of fermentation. As for other off flavors from hot ferrmentation, I'm not sure. I brewed a batch and kept it with another in the fermenting chamber ~67F for the first few days. After day 4 it was still at 1.025 and I got impatient. I put it in one of the rooms of my house, which is ~80F and it finished fermenting in a day. Unfortunately, it now tastes like poopoo. Figuratively, of course. The flavor is really weird. I've had estery batches before, that fermented in the mid 70's perhaps, but this one is something else. So...follow the advice these good brewers give you and use their cooling techniques. After sanitation and ingredients, I think Temperature is one of the most important aspects to manage if you are trying to brew a tasty beer IMHO.

Good luck,
monk

I was having a really hard time keeping my fermenter cool, I just couldn't get it down below 78-80, so I tried the wet towel with a fan trick and that brought the temp down pretty quickly, now it's a stable 67-72, much much better. While I think I may get some off-flavor due to the initial high temp and really quick fermentation, I'm going to wait and see how it tastes before I declare it a lost cause. Live and learn, I'm sure the next batch will be better.

If your beer is a little fruity you can always mix/blend it with a more bitter brew to make one good batch.

OK, so, after three days at 78-80 degrees, it's too late for this batch? Or should I try the towel trick. Part of me wants to just leave it and see what happens. Actually that's what I'm going to do. I'll keep y'all posted with my "fruity" results.

i'm in the same boat. i think i'm gonna put mine in some 2 liter soda bottles....why take the to bottle right if its not gonna help, right? 3rd times a charm...i hope

I have in the past, fermented at the high end of the yeast temp range and ended up with fruity esters, the beer was drinkable but not my best effort. I would suggest a little more temp control in the future.

ARV9673 said:

OK, so, after three days at 78-80 degrees, it's too late for this batch? Or should I try the towel trick. Part of me wants to just leave it and see what happens. Actually that's what I'm going to do. I'll keep y'all posted with my "fruity" results.

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Oh no. I hope you weren't discouraged by my previous post. Your beer will probably be fruitier than you thought, but DEFINITELY don't toss it. Let it sit and bottle as usually, I'd say. You never know what good things might happen. If you're thinking of dumping, first ask Walker-san what he thinks.

monk

NO NO, not thinking of dumping. Not to say it didn't cross my mind, but I think more than anything, the look on my wife's face (as I'm dumping it) after seeing how happy I was when I opened my present and how much i loved it would be too hard to take. Besides, now maybe it'll be a beer SHE likes too.

Really what I meant with the "stick with it" was not trying to adjust the temp at this point. Seems, from others' experience, it wouldn't matter now anyway. Plus, I'm curious just what people mean by "Fruity."

One of my first batches was a American pale ale I fermented high and slightly underhopped. It turned out tasting like and English Pale Ale, in the end. Those're good too! In fact my wife (as you're hoping) liked it quite a bit. Come to think of it, she's prefered all the batches that I fermented a bit too high and came out with a bit of esters.

Take your ambient temps and add 2 or 3 degrees to it. Your yeast get so active a by-product is heat. It heats your carboy right up. In fact, my wiesse beer during full blow-off was in a 67deg room and the sticky thermometer on the side of the carboy read 74deg.

ARV9673 said:

Plus, I'm curious just what people mean by "Fruity."

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That actually might be a interesting experiment. Brew a 5 gallon batch and split it between (5) 1 gallon carboys and ferment at different temps, maybe 2 or 3 degrees differennce between each bottle. Just to see what differences in "Fruity" are.

I've got my first brew, an ESB, in the carboy fermenting away now. In fact, it's slowed down considerably since last Sunday night when I started it, and I'm thinking I might be able to rack it to secondary by Sunday or Monday.

I put the carboy in an Igloo Ice Cube cooler, the smaller 48 quart one. I filled it almost halfway up with cool water and some ice. By adding about a quart and a half of ice twice a day, I've been able to keep the temperature down between 64 and 68. Perfect.