Basement temperature - last week of April

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Grinder12000

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Many of us use the basement for fermentation and as we all know the temperature of the basement is critical. So I thought it would be interesting to see what everyone's basement temperature was.

Columbus WI 25 miles north of Madison

61 degrees up from 58 in January
 
Depends where I put the fermenter in the brew room. The very far corner is a cool 56 or so while the rest of the room stays around 60-62. In the middle of summer it sometimes gets a balmy 65. I got really lucky that the people who built this house before we moved in finished the basement and left a little uninsulated storage room in a dark corner. It's like they built an ale fermentation closet on purpose :D
 
What kind of yeast do you guys use for these cool temps?

I live in youngstown ohio and mine has been between 59 and 61 as of late...

do you wrap your fermenters?
 
I generally use notty, S-05, WLP001 and WLP005. Most of the yeast say about 65 for the low range, but I've had no problems pitching around 58 and fermenting at around 62-63. No blankets or anything. It just produces a real clean beer. If I'm doing a hefe or belgian or something I might put the fermenter out in the hallway in the basement where it's usually closer to 67 and then move them back to the brew room after a week or so, but that's about the extent of temperature manipulation I do.
 
I adjust the style to match my temps - Hefe-weize in the winter. Plus the carboy is normally 3 or 4 degrees warmer then the suffounding temp. I also start my process warmer.
 
53°F a week ago or so on the basement floor. Its a newer house with a deep basement so I leave the vents closed to drop the temp and have no worry about the pipes freezing. I'll start another lager (probably the last for this year) in about two weeks.
 
My basement is pretty much a consistant 65 degrees from Oct. to May. My gas boiler and piping keep it that way. Once the outside temps. go into the 80's I'm done till fall.
 
I finished a fermentation Friday and turned off the aquarium heater in my water bath on the floor. Checked it last night it was at 61F. Air temp on 3ft counter top is 66F. It heat of summer air temp will raise to 71 if we don't have to run the A/C. If the A/C is running everyday it settles around 68F
 
I ferment in my basement mechanical room (boiler room) where the temp range is between 63-65F. When necessary I'll use a space heater to keep the room at a steady temp of around 68-70F depending on beer style being fermented.

When I transfer my brew to a secondary carboy to clear up the brew, I use an old 'coal' room that is much cooler 55-58F.
 
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