If you've ever heard people say how controlling your fermentation temps are a huge step to improving your beer, you've probably given it some thought. You may have also concluded that keeping the primary in an area with ambient temps in the general safe temp zone was good enough. Not really.
The first thing you ought to do is get some stick on thermometers to get a reasonable idea of what temp the wort is.
Fermentation kicks off a lot of heat so the wort is always going to be hotter than ambient during the active period. Just so you know I'm not just spouting off things that have been said in the past, here's proof.
This is my fermentation and cold conditioning fridge. On the top shelf you'll see some American Amber that is done with active ferment and has been transfered to secondary for aging and clearing.
On the bottom shelf is a Barleywine and ESB that are at peak fermentation "high krausen" having been pitched on yeast cakes two days ago.
Right, so what?
Here's what temp the Barleywine is running:
Here's the amber:
Yeah, the actively fermenting beers are 10F hotter. You might guess that it's because they're in different elevations in the fridge but think about it. Heat rises so if anything, the top beers would be warmer.
The moral of the story is that you can't assume that a reasonably comfortable ambient of 70-75F is anywhere close to cool enough for fermenting. Maybe you knew that. If not, this post is for you.
The first thing you ought to do is get some stick on thermometers to get a reasonable idea of what temp the wort is.
Fermentation kicks off a lot of heat so the wort is always going to be hotter than ambient during the active period. Just so you know I'm not just spouting off things that have been said in the past, here's proof.
This is my fermentation and cold conditioning fridge. On the top shelf you'll see some American Amber that is done with active ferment and has been transfered to secondary for aging and clearing.
On the bottom shelf is a Barleywine and ESB that are at peak fermentation "high krausen" having been pitched on yeast cakes two days ago.
Right, so what?
Here's what temp the Barleywine is running:
Here's the amber:
Yeah, the actively fermenting beers are 10F hotter. You might guess that it's because they're in different elevations in the fridge but think about it. Heat rises so if anything, the top beers would be warmer.
The moral of the story is that you can't assume that a reasonably comfortable ambient of 70-75F is anywhere close to cool enough for fermenting. Maybe you knew that. If not, this post is for you.