Ferment Temperature

I have been slack and let me beer supply run out. I am going to make a honey porter with WLP001 California Ale Yeast this weekend. SWMBO is tired of having fermenting beer in the closet. I have a basement and I put a glass of water on the floor and put a thermocouple in there. The Low temp is 61 deg and high of 64 deg. The White Labs web site says the temp is 68 -73 deg. Will it be ok to ferment this in the basement or do I need to keep it upstairs?

I would think you'll be just fine. The process of fermentation actually produces some heat, so that should keep you in the range specified by White Labs.

Brian

It sounds perfect in the basement! What you can do is put the fermenter on some insulation (to get it off of the cold floor) and probably hit 65-68 degrees with some fermentation. I've fermented WLP001 as low as 60 degrees with very good results. The key will be to get it going, so it doesn't stall on you.

Make a big starter, and pitch when the wort gets to 70 degrees before placing it in the basement, and you should be all set!

Thanks for the advice. I will place the fermenter off the floor so i don't get the cold heat transfer from the floor. You mentioned making a starter. Is that necessary for this yeast? I have made about 4 or 5 batches and I just dump the room temp vile in the 80 deg cooled wort.

I just made my first starter with WLP002 and I can tell you the activity was fast paced. I never saw my airlock so active before.

rockytoptim said:

Thanks for the advice. I will place the fermenter off the floor so i don't get the cold heat transfer from the floor. You mentioned making a starter. Is that necessary for this yeast? I have made about 4 or 5 batches and I just dump the room temp vile in the 80 deg cooled wort.

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If I were in your scenario, I would put the wort into the carboy and place it in the basement on the floor to cool to 60ish. I would give it 6-12 hours. I would make a 2000 ML starter and let it sit on the floor as well. Then I would pitch and put it on a piece of carpet or insulation. 001 should do just fine at that temp, especially with a starter. By using a starter you have less to be worried about lag time, which buys you some extra time to let the wort cool to a much better pitching temp.

You'll see a dramatic improvement over pitching at 80.

rockytoptim said:

Thanks for the advice. I will place the fermenter off the floor so i don't get the cold heat transfer from the floor. You mentioned making a starter. Is that necessary for this yeast? I have made about 4 or 5 batches and I just dump the room temp vile in the 80 deg cooled wort.

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Yes, it's generally necessary to make a starter for a vial of liquid yeast. Check out Mr Malty and scroll down to "yeast pitching calculator" to see how much yeast is optimal for your fermentation, based on the age of the yeast and the OG of the beer you're making. I think you'll be shocked at how much you've been underpitching.

I never, ever, pitch above 70 degrees. You'll get much better results if you pitch at fermentation temps.

Thanks for the info guys. I did some more reading on the forum and looks like I should have been making starter for all my batches in the past. I will make starter for my next batch but I will have to go to the LHBS for some DME since I don't have any extra. It will be interesting to see the difference in ferment.