Bottle Conditioning Temperature?

So I just bottled the lawnmower de saison kit from Midwest, and kept the fermentation temp in the mid 80's. A couple times the temp dipped during a cold night and the fermentation would cease until it warmed back up. So I'm assuming that to carbonate, the bottles need to be kept around the mid 80's for atleast a week too. Is this correct? And also, any tips for keeping bottles that warm? I wrapped a heating pad around my bucket to keep the ferment temps up.


Any advice is much appreciated!

You fermented in the mid 80s? That is very high and you will probably get some weird flavors. Fermentation for most ales is mid to high 60s. For bottle conditioning/cellaring you are looking for temps in the mid 50s to 60s. In general, the lower the temp, the longer it will take to carb, but better flavor profiles overall.

Edit: Sorry, just realized you did a saison. Mid 80s is fine for those.

so.. is mid 80s what i need for bottle condition/carbonation too? For my other regular ale brews i've just left the bottles at room temp and they came out fine, but im thinking the yeasties wont work with temps that low.

It depends on the yeast, personally I do everything at room temp but the yeast itself will have a temperature range and I generally try for the middle of that range. 80's does seem a bit high though.

The majority of the yeasts' work is done- from a flavor standpoint. This is what you are trying to develop with the high temps associated with a saison. Whenever I've bottled a saison, it's always been 70 degrees. No reason to elevate temps just for carbing/bottle-conditioning.

Lager, Ale, Hybrid, Saison, Steam Beer, etc., all of them can be carbonated at room temp. Lower 70s are the yeasts favorite temps to work in, but some of them do other things at different temps that we as brewers enjoy.

Lager yeasts can work in the arctic, saison yeats can work in the sahara, but they ALL would prefer to be chillin on the beach sippin mohitos at a nice 70 degrees or so, figuratively speaking of course.

I would do room temp, around 70F or less. I don't care what the Monks say I wouldn't ferment anything in the mid-80s.

ok yeah that sounds great but the truth is when i let the temp slip down into the 70s fermentation actually stopped, for almost a week until i figured out that temperature was the problem. how will i get carbonation if the yeasts are doing anything?

*aren't

In a saison, the higher fermentation temps are recommended to produce the proper yeast profile in the beer, not necessarily because the yeast won't ferment at lower temperature. Yeast produce different esters at different temperatures. For most ales, the spicy and fruity esters produced at higher temperatures are undesired and will produce flavors that stray quite far from the brewers intent. However, with saisons this spicy and fruity character is what is desired so the higher temperature during fermentation is warranted. Once fermentation is completed, the yeast have already done their job and given their desired contribution so the higher temperature is no longer needed. Because of this, bottling at 70F for three weeks still holds firm in reference to bottle carbonation.

Thought I would save a new thread and ask in this one. In regards to bottle conditioning, How long would you condition if temps are in the 50's? Also,
should i see any activity in the bottles or see nothing at all?

ba70665 said:

ok yeah that sounds great but the truth is when i let the temp slip down into the 70s fermentation actually stopped, for almost a week until i figured out that temperature was the problem. how will i get carbonation if the yeasts are doing anything?

*aren't

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Are you sure it stopped? Did you take hydro readings during that time? Bubbles in the airlock do not constitute fermentation or lack there of.

thanks eddie, that makes sense

Yeah i guess i just assumed, i mean i know that no airlock activity does not necessarily mean no fermentation. The correlation just seemed too obvious, when i had my heating blanket turned on high it bubbled, and when it turned off it didnt. That led me to the belief that these saison yeasts didnt funcion unless quite warm.

ba70665 said:

Yeah i guess i just assumed, i mean i know that no airlock activity does not necessarily mean no fermentation. The correlation just seemed too obvious, when i had my heating blanket turned on high it bubbled, and when it turned off it didnt. That led me to the belief that these saison yeasts didnt funcion unless quite warm.

Click to expand...

If you warm up a completely empty carboy with an airlock on it, it will bubble. All you are doing it making the gasses inside expand and push out. If I open the fridge door on my lager, it will start to bubble after a minute or so. It's just releasing the pressure created by the higher temps on the gas.

GrizzlyRed said:

Thought I would save a new thread and ask in this one. In regards to bottle conditioning, How long would you condition if temps are in the 50's? Also,
should i see any activity in the bottles or see nothing at all?

Click to expand...

What kind of yeast? If it's an ale yeast, it may not be able to do it's work that cool, if it's a lager yeast, it will just take a lot longer (probably about twice as long).

It's just Mutons dry yeast. It's my first batch and my basement is at about 58-63 degrees.

GrizzlyRed said:

It's just Mutons dry yeast. It's my first batch and my basement is at about 58-63 degrees.

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My basement is in the same temp range. Do you think this is too cold? I don't want to slow down the carb process any if I don't have to. It sounds like high 60's to low 70's is the idea temperature for carbing.

I think that OP may have crashed his yeast when it dropped to 70 if there was indeed any slowing of fermentation. I'm guessing all was fine at that temp and it was a faulty assumption but I have heard of yeast crashing at normally acceptable fermentation temperatures after being cooled from the mid 80s..

High 60s is fine for conditioning most beers, especially beers you're not trying to rush for aroma's sake. I like to keep my IPA's in the 70s for at least a week to speed things up, but I'll leave my Belgian Strongs at room temp for about 2 months before cracking anything and things are usually great. This might be silly but I kind of base the number of weeks bottle conditioning on the ABV, 1 week per percentage point.