temp range for secondary

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mawa

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I undersand the need to keep the temperature beteween a certain range during primary fermentation and for the first time after 5 batches, I've managed to control the temp (62 to 68).

How important is the temp during secondary (clearing) and after bottling? I ask this because i only have one big rubbermaid container where i keep my fermenter (I have around 3 gallons of water in the container and i cool it with bottles of ice) and I can only ferment one batch at a time.

If I could place the secondary (5 gal better bottle) outside of the container (the room temp is high 70's) it would allow me to have two brews going at the same time.

TIA
Mawa
 
It really depends on the type of beer, but upper 70's is too warm for most if not all beers. A good rule of thumb is to maintain the temperature from primary to secondary, although I like to secondary most of my brews at celler temps or colder if I know for sure that fermentation is complete. I think when combined with cold conditioning, it makes for better beer.
 
What scout said is true to a point. What you need to brew is wheat beers! They use warm fermenting yeasts are supposed to be estery in way.

http://www.northernbrewer.com/dried-yeast.html

There are yeasts out there that have a temperance for higher heat w/o making the dreaded fusel alcohols that cause headaches instead of buzzes.

Go to the link I attached or google Safale or Safbrew. You can find a higher temp yeast that will work at ~75.

Buy another rubbermaid kegger tub and put the 2ndary in it, fill it half full of water, drap a few towels over the top, but let the bottoms soak in water. The whole towels have to be wet. Then and rig a fan to blow on it you can get about a 10 degree drop if the room air is dry. This is the same premise of a swamp cooler. It works. I verified this with water in a glass carboy using a internal temp probe and a infrared heat gun.

Good Luck!!!
:mug:
 
Sorry for this not being entirely relevant to the thread, but while we're on a question of temperatures, what's the best temp for bottle conditioning? I have a basement that stays at 66-68 degrees and maybe as low as 64. I bottle conditioned a cranberry wheat beer of mine and it doesn't have very much carbonation...I think the lower temp inhibited the creation of it. So I moved the remainder of them up to a room upstairs in hopes that the carbonation problem will improve. I also brought my other bottle conditioning beer up in hopes of avoiding the same problem.

Any thoughts on this? Thanks!
 
To answer your question, the best carbonating is at fermenting temps per the given yeast. Sometimes thats 2-3 weeks. After carbing, cooling at 45F is what I store all of my suds at temp-wise.

I have real clear beers & ciders. I also wait at 3 months too. before crackin' one open.

:mug:
 
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