what's your favorite ale fermenting temp

I love ales and make several different varieties with several diffferent yeasts. I have been using smack packs and now White lab test tubes. I do a starter each batch. What is a good common temp for fermenting ales?

I know that it depends on the yeast but i'm not going to control my house (in Northern Minnesota near the cadian border) to get accurate fermenting temps. Typically our house is at 68 degrees while we are at home and 64 to 66 in the day while we are at work. I have a brew belt but am worried i might get the wart too hot when using that

Whats your favorite fermetning temp?

Right now I've been letting mine go in a corner of my house that's been about 64-65F which is where I'd be setting the temp. if I had them in a chest freezer with a controller.

63-65 for most all english and american ale yeasts, 68-70 for belgians

Last months issue of brew your own they asked a series of questions to brewmasters from around the country.One of the questions was what is your fermention temp in ales . They all answered 62 to 65 degrees. Bottoms up!

I have fermented both Cal Ale and the Kolsch yeast anywhere from 62-68 with no noticable difference in flavor. The Cal Ale stays around 64-66 here in the winter and 68 in the summer (with lots of help). Even at 62, Cal Ale produced a huge blow off and fermented all the way down in a few days.

Eric

Depends on the yeast strain but I usually just gage the rate of fermentation (just by observation). If it seems to be too fast I cool it and vice versa. My starting point is usually 64 F unless I know the strain well enough (like I know Notty will still ferment fast at 64 so I go cooler with Notty).

Same here. I set the temp on my controller at 63F for ales.

-Joe

I try to keep my ales in the 62-64* range.

I always pitch cold, keep the temperature cold until fermentation starts to slow and then let it free-rise to ambient room temperature - around 70 degrees in winter and 78 in summer.

For Koelsch yeast, I start around 62 degrees, for English and American Ale yeasts I start around 64-68 degrees, and for Belgian yeasts I start around 66-70 degrees.

Almost all of my ales are at 62-65 degrees. Occasionally, I have to raise it up to 68 or so if I have any trouble getting that yeast to attenuate. I have one strain (northwest ale yeast) that I like at 68 degrees.

My house is cool all year round- either my living area in the winter, or my basement in summer- so I don't really have a problem with keeping ales at an ideal temperature.

If your house is at 68 degrees, you definitely don't need a brewbelt! The fermenting wort is probably at least a couple degrees warmer than ambient (maybe more), so you're could already be at the top of the yeast's temperature range. If the ambient temperature drops during the day to 64, that shouldn't drop the temperature of the beer very much at all. You could try putting the fermenter in a pail of water to help stabilize temperature swings.

If you have a "stick-on" thermometer, those are really helpful and can tell you the temperature of the fermenting beer.

72F... that is my fav.

I usually go in the 67-68 degree area. Seeing all the posters who go a couple degrees lower I may knock it down a couple degrees and see if I notice any difference.

64-69 here. I tend to do a lot at 67. But yeah, depends on the yeast and the gravity. I sometimes push the higher gravity beers lower, more towards 63-65, to avoid excessive ester and fusel production. I recently did a step fermentation on a Belgian that started at 65 and ended at 77, with great results. So, it depends on the needs of the beer: High gravity, low gravity, yeast, these all make a difference to me.

I try to keep it around 64-65 when I can. I fermented around 64 with Notty this week, though, and it took a 1.050 beer to 1.012 in somewhere south of 96 hours. Yee-haw.

I'm new at this but I did build a fermentation chamber from an old fridge I had and I am fermenting at 65.

Now a question - when I bottle is it OK to store the bottles at a higher temp, say 70-72?

Marsdude said:

Now a question - when I bottle is it OK to store the bottles at a higher temp, say 70-72?

Click to expand...

Sure - warmer temps make them carbonate faster.

A follow up question I'd have is how many of the people fermenting on the lower side, say 60-64, are using Fermentis US-05? It's been my experience that Wyeast 1056 is pretty clean even at warmer temps but that US-05 puts out a lot more esters at those warmer temps.

Basic Ales using US-05, about 62*F

Wheats using Wyeast 3068, about 64*F

I have a fermetation chiller made out of a 4cf fridge, so I can control the temp.

Matt, Do you notice a difference in the rate/vigor of fermentation between the two at similar temps? I haven't used 1056 in a long time and S-05 only a few times total so I can't really compare.

My last few ales have been around 60-61 using pacman and US-05 and I am preferring this temp now. This is the wort temp too, the ambient in the freezer is usually around 56 during active fermentation.

I chill my wort to the low to mid 60s, then keep my fermenting room around 68. I've been happy with the results.

SpanishCastleAle said:

Matt, Do you notice a difference in the rate/vigor of fermentation between the two at similar temps? I haven't used 1056 in a long time and S-05 only a few times total so I can't really compare.

Click to expand...

I only used US-O5 twice, once at 65 and once at 67. Both were high gravity beers and both used two packets that were rehydrated. Both had larger lag times though nothing horrible. They both took 12-16 or so hours to get started whereas 1056 typically takes more like 6 hours or something in my setup, and sometimes as little as 3 or 4 hours. The beers took longer to finish up too, but these were high gravity beers, like I said, some that can be explained away. They had decent enough activity.

The character of the yeast to me, though, was not like 1056 at all at those temps. I didn't like either beer. The esters were too pronounced and beers just didn't taste clean to me. I actually dumped one of them because I disliked it so much. The other is a Barley Wine that I'm hoping will get better with age. It's in secondary and has been for a couple of months so I'll see.

And after that, I won't be using their yeasts again. I have plenty of liquid here and have never had any troubles with it, so I'll stick to what I trust. I realize other people have different opinions on this and am not trying to diss anyone or start a fight. But this is my own experience. Out of the 14 beers I've made here in Croatia since last summer, these were the only two I didn't like. The other 12 used a variety of liquid yeasts and I love all of them.

If you haven't tried Nottingham you owe it to yourself to try it imo. I always used liquid but decided to try some dry within the past year and Nottingham is pretty darn good. It's the best tasting dry yeast I've used (only between it, S-04 and S-05). But it's a vigorous fermenter.

I do most of my ale fermentations around 62F, because that's where I keep the house in the heating season (Sept-May)

MattHollingsworth said:

I didn't like either beer. The esters were too pronounced and beers just didn't taste clean to me. I actually dumped one of them because I disliked it so much.

And after that, I won't be using their yeasts again. I have plenty of liquid here and have never had any troubles with it, so I'll stick to what I trust.

Click to expand...

Nice to hear someone else echo what I thought. I used S-04 on an OctoberFAST last fall, then US-05 on a pale ale. Hated them both, dumped them both. Too estery.

I pretty much stick with WLP001, then wash it to save out a couple jars for the next batches. Haven't had a bad batch from this yeast yet. I'll never use 04 or 05 again.

I also used S-23 for a Vienna Lager recently. Hate it. I'll probably end up dumping it.

So I don't completely go off-topic, I ferment all my ales at about 62-68. No warmer than 68. I learned my lesson last summer.

SpanishCastleAle said:

If you haven't tried Nottingham you owe it to yourself to try it imo. I always used liquid but decided to try some dry within the past year and Nottingham is pretty darn good. It's the best tasting dry yeast I've used (only between it, S-04 and S-05). But it's a vigorous fermenter.

Click to expand...

Thanks, but naw. I'm happy with my liquid yeast. I've also read a lot of horror stories about Notty. Right now I'm digging WLP023 Burton Ale yeast and I have a lot of liquid yeast either here or on the way already. Not feeling the itch to try anymore dry yeast at all at the moment.

BrokenBrew said:

Nice to hear someone else echo what I thought. I used S-04 on an OctoberFAST last fall, then US-05 on a pale ale. Hated them both, dumped them both. Too estery.

I pretty much stick with WLP001, then wash it to save out a couple jars for the next batches. Haven't had a bad batch from this yeast yet. I'll never use 04 or 05 again.

I also used S-23 for a Vienna Lager recently. Hate it. I'll probably end up dumping it.

So I don't completely go off-topic, I ferment all my ales at about 62-68. No warmer than 68. I learned my lesson last summer.

Click to expand...

Yeah, that was my experience as you read. Hoping that Barley Wine turns out in the long run. I won't use Fermentis again except for adding at bottling larger beers that have been aged out.