New Brewer, fermentation help!

I brewed my first batch of beer January 1st, a Extra Pale Ale extract kit from Northern Brewer.

Its fermenting great (lots of activity after only 18 hours or so) and continues. My only concern is because i live in south florida, and 83 degree weather in january is normal (depressing.) fermenting is going to be a huge pain until i can afford a fridge to use as a chiller. My yeast calls for a 60-72 degree fermentation but i cant get my house lower then 72. So my stick on thermometer on my glass carboy is reading 75-77 (im keeping it in my closet). Is there anything to worry about? Is there anything i can do to help knock it down a good 5 degrees or so? I just wrapped a wet, cold towel around it (any good).

Im new, i need help. Thanks.

I live in Atlanta and in the summer have the same problem. Definitely look into a swamp cooler. Cheap and effective. Just use the search there are plenty of good write-ups.

A simple technique is to put the fermenter in an ice bath. Find a container that can hold your fermenter, and add cold water/ice packs until the water level covers most of the volume of beer. Change out the ice packs every day or so, should get you 5-10* cooler.

Hot fermentation temps can lead to more ester production by the yeast, which can cause fruity off-flavors.

75 is pretty hot. You'll want to figure out something soon to keep your beers cooler. It's most important in the first 3 days of fermentation.

Try one of those buckets you can get when you buy a keg. Anything that holds water and fits a carboy can be used to regulate temp.

Thanks for the responses, after wrapping the carboy in a wet towel and using a fan, i have managed to get the temp down to 71. Its been steady for about 8 hours now. I have already located a free refrigerator that i will start using for my next batch!

Will i be able to bottle condition most of my beers in at the same temp as my fermentation? Or will i need to put the bottles in a cooler fridge (trying to not take up two fridges full of beer, don't think the lady would like that much).

Thanks again!

Bottle condition at room temp.

The colder the beer is, the slower the yeast work. When it comes to carbonating, you want that to happen at a reasonable rate, so somewhere around 70-75 is good.

Most likely your beer won't be best this time. Definitely try to get at peast a swamp cooler for next time. It can REALLY clean up the taste.

Bottle conditioning would be fine at that temp. The most critical stage is the first few days when the vast majority of the wort is converted. After it slows down you can ramp it up without worry.

I was sent this article for the same reason http://***********/stories/issue/ar...ntrolling-fermentation-temperature-techniques

You might want to put your construction skills to a test http://home.roadrunner.com/~brewbeer/chiller/chiller.PDF

If you do the fridge, make sure you put a temp controller on it, so you can keep it at a good temp. Otherwise, you may end up fermenting too cold.

I've also heard with swamp coolers, it may actually be better to put LESS water in the swamp cooler(not to fill it up the same height as the wort in the ferm) and I think the main reason was so you could control the temp of the WATER easier, whether you use frozen water bottles or whatever, the less water there is, the easier it will be to cool it down, or heat it back up if it gets too cold. Last time I used a swamp cooler I did fill it about half way up. Either way, you will definitely get a cleaner beer if you can keep the temp between 60-70, ideally 65-68 IMO. Good luck!

Again, thanks for all the help guys.

Luckily, my father is a A/C contractor (30+ years) so he will be helping me install a thermostat to regulate my temps with the fridge. Should be pretty simple. I've been able to keep the fermentation at about 69-71 with the wet towel for a good 24 hours or so now. Unfortunately though, it will be a few days until the fridge is up and running and now my wort seems to almost be completely stopped with fermenting. A bubble every few minutes or so, and i'm only on day 3. Can i save this bastard!?!

Call it a Belgian Pale? Seriously though, with those temps if you would have used a belgian strain of yeast it could have turned out better.

If it was me, once you you know its done fermenting (hit FG at least 3 days in a row) I'd first taste it, if it tastes good bottle per usual. If you notice any funky fruitiness I'd bottle it and forget about it for 2 or so months. By then it might mellow a bit and the yeast will clean up a bit making your beer taste better.

The recipe (remember this is my first batch) calls for a secondary fermentation, which i know generally clears up the beer, so should i wait a while before racking it or just go ahead since fermentation has dramatically slowed. I figured i would just wait another 5-10 days or so before going into the second fermentation.

I would not move until fermentation is stopped. Maybe a week after it started, or two if you can force yourself to do it. Then another 2-3 weeks in secondary.

OR, many people simply leave in primary for 3-4 weeks and carefully siphon off the yeast cake. That is what I do. The extra time on the yeast will not hurt anything.

Either way, I'd crash cool it in a fridge few a few days before racking off. The cold will help the particles settle out and make for a clearer beer.

thanks homercidal.

a sudden cold front is keeping my beer at a nice 63-64. fermentation seems to be about 24 hours from done and i plan on doing the crashing cooling (looks quite cloudy).

thanks for all the help.