Temperature Question

Last night, while the Buckeyes were getting embarrassed, I started drinking...heavily. I checked my brew, which at the time had been in the primary for a little over 24 hours, and it was bubbling about once per second. The thermometer said it was a little over 70 degrees so I shut off the little heater I have in the closet. Like I said, I was not thinking too clearly.

This morning, I checked the brew and there was no more bubbling! The temperature had dropped to 64 degrees over night so I turned the heater back on.

Is this due to the temperature drop or is my yeast done fermenting already?! And if it is a temperature problem will the yeast "come back alive?"

Thanks for the help in advance!

Could be done, but if it wasn't they just got slowed down with the cooler temp. Bring it back to 70 to be sure. They'll restart if there's more work to be done and would continue at 64 as well; just slower.

A hydro readining in the end will tell you where your at.

I'm sure your "heavy" drinking was in celebration... GO GATORS!!!!!

DrugCoder said:

I'm sure your "heavy" drinking was in celebration... GO GATORS!!!!!

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I wish...

desertBrew said:

Could be done, but if it wasn't they just got slowed down with the cooler temp. Bring it back to 70 to be sure. They'll restart if there's more work to be done and would continue at 64 as well; just slower.

A hydro readining in the end will tell you where your at.

Click to expand...

The hydro reading is something I have also been confused by. First off, I forgot to take one before I sealed up the primary. Second, do i just place the hydrometer in the primary, or do I syphon out some liquid? Syphoning sounds like a lot of work just to see if the fermenting is done or not. I would almost just want to wait a week or two and be sure that it is done and not have to mess with the syphoning.

Definitely wait 1 week. Did your hydro come with a clear tube? You don't put it in the fermenter but grab some out to test it. However if you use a secondary (recommend) don't bother testing until you rack over to the secondary. 1 week primary, 2 week secondary and 3 week bottle is always a good rule. Also typically when the krausen has fallen in the primary is a good time to move to secondary. Others go by airlock bubble count; 1 every 60 seconds or so but this can be misleading if you're fermenting too cool.

Sounds good. I have heard of the 1,2,3 rule so I was going to go by that rather than the FG. I will, however check the gravity when I put it into the secondary that I don't have yet! I will get one this weekend though!

Thanks for the advice.

Hey, the temperature in my basement is about 56 degrees, is that too cold? I've had a Amber ale in the primary down there for about 5 days. The first two days there were substatial bubbles coming out of the airlock but it stopped after that.

I checked my brew last night that has been in the primary for about 3 days or so, and the hydometer read about 1.020, about .01 higher than what it should be. It hasn't been bubbling for about a day now. I'm thinking I'm in good shape...

Just because the bubbling has "stopped" doesn't mean it's necessarily done fermenting, I believe, I'm no expert.

Maybe it's just bubbling very slow, once per minute?