Another Safale S-04 Question

Howdy all.

I haven't been on here in years. I decided to pick up home brewing again after 4-5 years.

This is only my 7th brew or so, and first in years so I was a bit rusty and made some mistakes. One was burning the malt extract syrup on the bottom of the kettle at 45 mins, which I noticed after I poured the wort.

I did a Newcastle clone with partial grains, and used S-04. I pitched too hot, my thermomteter was reading high so I eyeballed it and pitched around 80-90 F degrees I think. I let the fermentor kick off indoors and then moved it to the garage after 4 hours.

Garage stays a constant 46-50 F in winter. It is insulated and heated but I don't turn the heat on unless it gets real cold outside. I wrapped the bucket in blankets and it was at 66 F for the first 24 hours, with constant airlock activity every second.

Today is day 4 and the temp on the fermentor has settled to about 60 F and airlock activity has slowed to about every 10-15 seconds or so.

At some point do I need to bring it back inside? House is 67-68 F. I have read that contrary to the Safale instructions (which say minimum temp is 64F), S-04 can go down to around 60.

Also, since I pitched hot and it settled from the 80s into the mid 60's before it really took off, am I going to get some bad flavors?

I haven't opened the lid on the bucket yet to see what is going on, but I assume that since it is showing regular bubbles I should be OK.

Thanks!

 

S-04 is pretty forgiving and can be fermented warm with no off flavours. You should warm the beer up at some point and let sit for a few days. Take gravity samples days aprt to know if it is done, but S-04 is usually done in 4 days.

S-04 can give some tart-ish flavours in beer, which I noticed in some of my brews.

 

Thanks for the input. I checked again and it is now 56F. I think after work I will now bring it inside and bring it into the mid to hi 60s. But for how long? I was planning to leave this in the primary fermentor for 2 weeks and bottle.

 

I'd say that 2 weeks in the mid to high 60's would be about right. That might encourage the yeast to drop the FG a few points too.

 

Pitching dry yeast at 85 isn’t actually that bad so no worries from off flavors there but as the yeast slows down you need to make sure it stays warm if the ambient temp causes it to cool down as fermentation slows it can flocc and not clean up after itself. You’ll end up with some serious off flavors and/or a beer that doesn’t finish.

I wouldn’t ferment ales in your garage if it’s at 46-50. Perfect for lagers though. Just pitch 4 packs of yeast.

If you want to make ales I would ferment in your house (got a closet with an outside wall maybe that is a little cooler?) and use something very forgiving. US-05 would be great if you want to stick to dry yeast. It’s a pretty clean yeast and would so much better than s-04 at warmer temps in your house. S-04 is not that awesome above 66 IMHO. It gets rather tart.

Bring that fermenter inside and rouse the yeast.. probably a few times over the next few days. Hopefully you’ll generate some activity and it can finish out.

 

Leave it there until it's done. How do you know Hydrometer reading stable taken two days apart. Don't rush anything.