did I make a mistake?

after reading a few discussions about fermenting temps. I decided to try one of those there swamp coolers. I was told that the correct temps to ferment a pale ale is 65-75. Saturday I brewed a batch of pale ale and it has been fermenting in my closet at a consistent 77 degrees. So last night I go home, get a plastic wally-world bin, set my fermenting bucket in it, fill it about half full of water and drop in 3 frozen 20oz. water bottles. Question is will that quick drop in temp. stall fermentation? temp is hovering around 65 degrees or so now.


*by the way, all activity had stopped in the airlock before I started this process if that matters*

65 is still in the low-normal range for an average ale yeast. Just take it out of the water bin & let it warm up, and it should be fine.

5 gallons won't drop quick.

No worries about that, It will hopefully be ok, but any damage has been done. Good to get it cool now, but best to cool it from the start.

The swamp cooler is great, but it is slow to cool.

65F may be ideal. It will slow fermentation, but better to bve slow and low, no worries about off flavors then.
Best to keep fermentation below 69F if possible.

when you say "any damage has been done" what do you mean? will it taste like poo or what?

Tobyone said:

when you say "any damage has been done" what do you mean? will it taste like poo or what?

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don't worry about it. your beer will be fine.

I'm in central Louisiana and its hard to get fermentation temps under 72 even with a swamp cooler.

what this means for me and you is that your beer *may* have some off flavors. those flavors may be more or less noticable depending on the style of beer you're making.

my first beer had some off flavors but they got less and less as the beer aged.

So...

1. don't worry about it. drink some beer and relax.
2. let your beer stay in primary (your fermentation bucket) for three weeks or so. Don't mess with it during that time, other than to add ice to the exterior swamp cooler.
3. Once you bottle let it age in the bottle for as long as you can stand. Three weeks is optimal, two weeks is okay but your beer might not be at its best.

Same boat. Don't sweat it. If my beer is at 68-70F and I change four water bottles a day in a un-insulated tub it will maintain steady. It takes several gallon jugs frozen to lower the temp or I can maintain in a cooler with two 20oz water bottles a day. To cold crash it takes 2 bags of ice in cooler to get to 43ish. It does not change fast at all.

thanks guys, i feel mo better now

Most of the flavors your yeast are going to generate happen within the first few days. I think that's what they meant by the damage. High 70's will make it do different things but it won't "taste like poo" At this point it's probably not going to help or hurt to chill it down.

As a very general rule, you want to start ale fermentation on the cool side (low to mid 60's) and let it ride up to the high 60's over a week. Will vary by style, good recipes will give you a ballpark temp. Your beer should still taste great!