Ale Fermentation - How Long to Maintain Low Temperature?

[PittsburghBrewer]

Hello,

I'm brewing my second beer tonight (a British Bitter extract kit from Northern Brewer). I'll be using Safale S-04 yeast, and I've read that people have success fermenting with that yeast around 64F (beer temperature, not ambient temperature).

Here's my question: do I need to maintain 64F until bottling, or is keeping the low temp. important only during the first few days of active fermentation? I expect to keep the beer on the yeast until around Sept. 17 (18 days). My basement tends to be about 68F ambient, so I'm going to be using an Igloo 60 qt. Ice Cube cooler filled with water and reusable ice packs to keep the temperature down.

Thanks!

 

[gunnuts]

I'm totally a nub,,,
When I ferment, I start my ale yeast out at 62-64 for the first few days then increase my temp to 66-68 for the rest of the ferment.

I started my first beer warm and it was TERRIBLE>

 

[kev211]

Actually, common practice is to raise the temp after primary fermentation/high krausen. By doing this, the goal is to let the yeast go back and "eat up" their by product, called diacetyl. This process is known as a diacetly rest.

So basically, ferment at ~64, and when the primary fermentation is finishing up let the beer come up to the ambient temp of 68 and let it finish out at that temp. The goal is to do this while the yeast are still active/in solution and havent flocculated yet

 

[ChelisHubby]

Keep it at 64 for the first 4 or 5 days with small beers meaning 5% alcohol if it is a big as in 8% I would double that to 10 days. Then you can let the temps rise.

 

[ncbrewer]

Keep it at 64 for the first 4 or 5 days with small beers meaning 5% alcohol if it is a big as in 8% I would double that to 10 days. Then you can let the temps rise.

+1
Maybe not necessary, but even after letting the temp rise, I still keep it within the recommended range - just at the high end.