Hi I'm new to homebrewing. my air con is playing up and I'm trying to keep the temperature of my fermented down. I have them sitting in a tray with dry ice and ice. do you think this will work or will it just make the bottom half of the brew colder than the rest? Thanks
fermenter too hot!!
- Thread starter ltriga
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Ogri
Well-Known Member
You're nearly there.
Instead of a tray get a bucket/plastic box/anything that you can fit your fermenter inside and fill with water to, close to, the level of beer in the fermenter. Use your ice packs, frozen bottles of water to regulate the temperature.
http://billybrew.com/swamp-cooler-homebrew
Instead of a tray get a bucket/plastic box/anything that you can fit your fermenter inside and fill with water to, close to, the level of beer in the fermenter. Use your ice packs, frozen bottles of water to regulate the temperature.
http://billybrew.com/swamp-cooler-homebrew
this is what i have done, i dont have anything big enough to put it in but i will look for something tomorrow. thanks thats a good idea, i might incorporate a fish tank heater also and set the thermostat so it doesnt get too cold also
Ogri
Well-Known Member
Yeah, what you've got there is definitely better than nothing but, if you can find something of the same length and breadth, with more depth you'll get a higher volume of water/greater thermal mass and it'll regulate the temperature far more efficiently, both for cooling in the initial first few days of vigorous fermentation, when the yeast are busy and creating an exothermic condition, and also using the aquarium heater after their activity has died down and you need to raise the temp to help get fully attenuated/cleaned up.
Is the one on the right a Victoria Bitter?
Is the one on the right a Victoria Bitter?
Since moving them into the tray the VB has stopped fermenting after two days. it was bubbling like crazy and then just stopped all of a sudden
any ideas what could have happened. it went from 30c down to 26c I wouldn't think that would affect it in anyway
any ideas what could have happened. it went from 30c down to 26c I wouldn't think that would affect it in anyway
That is pretty typical of ale yeasts, they go crazy for a couple of days eating sugars (like college boys with free beer) and then they slow down and lazily finish the job. Since your beer fermented too warm (waay to warm) the yeast will have created a mess in the fermenter (remember the college boys and the free beer?) and will need lots more time to clean up. Leave this beer in the fermenter for a total of at least 3 weeks, 4 would be better, 5 if you can stand the wait. Being fermented too warm, you're likely to find fusel alcohol (hot alcohol taste) and if you do, drink this in moderation or suffer the consequences. I've heard it causes headaches and hangovers if you get too much,
Yeah they are out of sunlight. I've seen how they slow down but this just stopped rapidly almost as soon as I moved the fermemter. its my forth brew and I haven't had any problems so far... the tooheys new next to it didn't change bit the VB did. its strange
Ogri
Well-Known Member
RM-MN nailed it in his explanation above :rockin:
Fermentation temperature in the first two days was about 30*C you said, right??
The yeast went apesh!t eating all the sugar, aided by higher temps, but they'll have left behind some fermentation by-products that might not be too desirable. Lowering the temp after the initial feasting can cause/signal the yeast to go dormant.
Ideally you'd want to pitch your yeast into the wort when both are about 20*C, or slightly lower, and have the wort cooled down a bit more before fermentation really takes off. Once Fermentation gets into full swing the temp of the beer rises so, if ambient temps are pretty high, the beer will very likely get even hotter, causing some of the weird compounds, off flavours/smells to get produced. Keeping the fermenter temp controlled down near the lower end of the yeast's temp. range, in the first 2 to 4 days, will help you get a beer with less off flavours. After the initial highly active phase is finished you can let the beer get a bit warmer without having to worry about off flavours being spawned.
ltriga said:
Fermentation temperature in the first two days was about 30*C you said, right??
The yeast went apesh!t eating all the sugar, aided by higher temps, but they'll have left behind some fermentation by-products that might not be too desirable. Lowering the temp after the initial feasting can cause/signal the yeast to go dormant.
Ideally you'd want to pitch your yeast into the wort when both are about 20*C, or slightly lower, and have the wort cooled down a bit more before fermentation really takes off. Once Fermentation gets into full swing the temp of the beer rises so, if ambient temps are pretty high, the beer will very likely get even hotter, causing some of the weird compounds, off flavours/smells to get produced. Keeping the fermenter temp controlled down near the lower end of the yeast's temp. range, in the first 2 to 4 days, will help you get a beer with less off flavours. After the initial highly active phase is finished you can let the beer get a bit warmer without having to worry about off flavours being spawned.
Ogri
Well-Known Member
Not absolutely sure but isn't the Cooper's yeast able to handle slightly higher temps than some other yeasts?? Unionrdr would probably know the answer to that.
Is the fermenter still at 25*C?? I suppose the best thing that you can do now is try and keep it at as constant a temp as possible. Even if there is no airlock action the yeast will still keep on working/cleaning up some of the fermentation by-products. Read again what RM-MN wrote above, again, and take heed of his advice to let the batch sit in the fermenter for a decent amount of time. Definitely heard somewhere that length of time in primary aids the diffusion(or is it conversion into different compounds) of fusels/acetaldehyde.
After three weeks from pitching the yeast try tasting the sample that you draw for you FG hydrometer reading and see how it tastes and smells. It's by no means guaranteed that your brew is going to be an acetaldehyde, fusel bomb ridden batch of liquid headache.
Anyways, don't give up on the batch for a good while yet.
Is the fermenter still at 25*C?? I suppose the best thing that you can do now is try and keep it at as constant a temp as possible. Even if there is no airlock action the yeast will still keep on working/cleaning up some of the fermentation by-products. Read again what RM-MN wrote above, again, and take heed of his advice to let the batch sit in the fermenter for a decent amount of time. Definitely heard somewhere that length of time in primary aids the diffusion(or is it conversion into different compounds) of fusels/acetaldehyde.
After three weeks from pitching the yeast try tasting the sample that you draw for you FG hydrometer reading and see how it tastes and smells. It's by no means guaranteed that your brew is going to be an acetaldehyde, fusel bomb ridden batch of liquid headache.
Anyways, don't give up on the batch for a good while yet.
If you leave it in the fermenter for a decent amount of time it won't be a fail. It may not be optimal but it should be quite drinkable. Brewing is a learning process. The learning curve isn't impossibly steep and you get to drink your lessons.:fro:
I know exactly how you feel....but there isn't anything you can do now. I brewed an IPA a couple weeks ago and we got a heat wave with temps in the 80s. Well...I was gone most of the weekend and my fermentor got up to 78 degrees for a day. I was freaking out and reading about how my beer was going to taste like ass and bananas. I let it sit extra 10 days longer in primary than normal. I dry-hopped it last week and tasted it...it tasted just fine. I'm confident that after 3 weeks of bottle conditioning it will be delicious. If not...it'll sit a little longer.
