Temperature problems

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Hutch

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Hi All

New to the wonderful world of homebrew and have femented one batch (Coopers Pale Ale) which is conditioning in the bottles and got another batch off and running in the mean time (Coopers Canadian Blonde). However i'm having a bit of troble with this batch and keeping it warm. I'm in southern Australia and average day temperature is about 15 degrees celcius and at night can drop below 0 degrees celcius. I have the fementer in a wood cupboard, with a heat pad and blanket round it but so far i can't stabalise the temperature.

The batch startes off at about 24 degrees but then once fermentation has started it increses up to 30 degrees and obviously its too hot so i play around with the heat pad and blanket but it dropped to 18 degrees celcius. I guess my question is wheather the temperature fluctuations will hurt the brew. I'm trying to get it stable, playing around with different conbinations of warming but is a bit of a worry. Any suggestions will be greatly appriciated.

Thanks

Hutch :mug:
 
sorry for thread-jacking, but i'm going to chime in with an opposite problem. well, it may not be a problem, but i fear it might. my apartment gets pretty hot during the day and well into the evening (orange county, CA). i havent actually checked a thermometer, but i'd guess its around 75 - 80F. as i understand, this is out of the comfort zone for ales? should i expect any problems?
 
As far as temperature fluctuations go, it won't make your beer undrinkable, but it may cause all kinds of funky off flavors that you weren't expecting, like green apple, butterscotch, or cooked vegetable flavor. here's a link for common off flavors

http://www.howtobrew.com/section4/chapter21-2.html

Also for the heating pad, try wrapping a towel or two around the carboy first, then the heating pad. If you have a furnace, try keeping it close to that wrapped in a blanket/towel/cardboard box
 
Wheat King said:
sorry for thread-jacking, but i'm going to chime in with an opposite problem. well, it may not be a problem, but i fear it might. my apartment gets pretty hot during the day and well into the evening (orange county, CA). i havent actually checked a thermometer, but i'd guess its around 75 - 80F. as i understand, this is out of the comfort zone for ales? should i expect any problems?
Click to expand...


You will have some off flavors at those temps.Wrap you carboy with a wet towle and put a fan blowing at it.
 
Hutch said:
I have the fementer in a wood cupboard, with a heat pad and blanket round it but so far i can't stabalise the temperature.
Click to expand...
How are you measuring the temperature? Ambient temperature won't really give you a very precise idea of the fermentation temperature. Most of us use aquarium-type temperature strips stuck directly on the fermenter to get an idea of fermentation temps, but even they won't give you an exact idea in the middle of the wort which is generally a few degrees warmer.

If you have it relatively well insulated, I would guess your wort temperature is not really varying that much. As far as what that temp might be, I would guess just a few degrees warmer than the fermenter itself.

I recently brewed a lager in my garage fridge which, against better judgement, does not have a temperature controller on it. However, what I found was that I could set the fridge temp controller at a certain place and the temp strip on my fermenter read 48F day or night which just goes to show that even though the temps were no doubt fluctuating in the fridge 5g or wort will stay relatively stable.
 
Wheat King--I'm in Placentia (North OC) and it's like a frickin' furnace out here. We have been ac'ing it just to keep the house around 80. I'm fermenting a fruity brew however, so I don't have to worry too much about esters. Maybe you should try doing the same? Good luck.

the (not) Monk (anymore)
 
I have found that if the ferment has had wild temperature swings, that leaving it in the primary for an extra week helps. Temperature swings can be a real problem when the ferment starts too fast. My Old Dog Brown got almost as hot, fermented in 18 hours & was a little sour at first. I left it on the cake for two weeks, kegged it and after a month it is doing fairly well.

Remember, insulation is your friend, even if it is just stacks of old newspapers. Blogs don't work nearly as well.
 
Hutch said:
Hi All

New to the wonderful world of homebrew and have femented one batch (Coopers Pale Ale) which is conditioning in the bottles and got another batch off and running in the mean time (Coopers Canadian Blonde). However i'm having a bit of troble with this batch and keeping it warm. I'm in southern Australia and average day temperature is about 15 degrees celcius and at night can drop below 0 degrees celcius. I have the fementer in a wood cupboard, with a heat pad and blanket round it but so far i can't stabalise the temperature.

The batch startes off at about 24 degrees but then once fermentation has started it increses up to 30 degrees and obviously its too hot so i play around with the heat pad and blanket but it dropped to 18 degrees celcius. I guess my question is wheather the temperature fluctuations will hurt the brew. I'm trying to get it stable, playing around with different conbinations of warming but is a bit of a worry. Any suggestions will be greatly appriciated.

Thanks

Hutch :mug:
Click to expand...
I made an insulated box, with a thermostat to control the heat. It has a shelf about 6 inches off the bottom and underneath it , there is a 100 watt light blub which heats the box. the light blub hasn't affect the taste of my beer and it keeps the temperature within 3 degrees. The light is not direct light because the shelf blocks it out, but lets the heat up. My insulted box is made from an old dryer, so everything is metal and the front is on hinges to open out and the top can lift up. I made this 25 years ago and won't be without it.
 
Thanks all for your replys. I tasted my Pale Ale batch, i know its only been a week in the bottles which is proberbly a no no, but i wanted to taste the difference as it ages. As i said the fememtation suffered from fairly large temperature swings and the batch tasted really stale and off like. I guess the unmatured beer will taste a bit off but i wonder if the temp swings will also afect the taste.

I'm going to insulate the fementer box to try and maintain temperature for my next batch and also try and keep the bottles a bit warmer as the pale ale was quite flat which didn't help with the taste. Will aging improve the taste? I also measure the temp from a stick on thermometer on the side of the fementer, i assume is would be ok for measuring the brew temp.

Thanks again for the replys and i will keep you posted of the progress.

Hutch :mug:
 

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