Belgians and temperature control

[lordbeermestrength]

Hey all,

I am planning on doing a belgian golden strong ale this Christmas with my family. I have been reading that temp control is fairly important in acheiving the right level of esters and aromas from those begian yeasts, and I want to start around low to mid 70's and work up to upper 80's over about a 5 day period. I read somewhere (don't remember where) that somone used a heating pad with a digital control on it to keep their carboy at the right temp through primary fermentation. Has anybody done this or heard of this before?

Dave

 

[Glibbidy]

Temperature control cetainly must be taken into consideration when brewing up any Belgian Style beer. One must take into consideration the flavors that they personally desire when making these beers. With that said you need to choose a yeast that is aligned with the specific style you want to brew, and then use temperature control to get the desired flavors from that specific yeast.

So with that said what said, which yeast strain are you planning to use?
Once the yeast takes off, I don't think you will run into major issues with the rise in temps, I'd be more concerned with keeping the primary temps from getting too high as a result of primary fermentation.

I prefer to pitch on the lower side (mid 60's) and then let the yeast take off and heat up on it's own, and then try to control it from getting to hot.

 

[springer]

I did a Saison in August thought I could keep on the second floor of my garage wouldn't you know the temps dropped to 70's during the day and 40's at night. I put the better bottle in an unused 8 cubic ft freezer with a gallon of hot water right from the tap my tap water is around 130ish I check it every couple of hours and the temp leveled at 85* by morning the temp was 78* and the water bottle was still fairly warm. I left the beer in the freezer the whole time and the temps stayed very level . I am sure a cooler would work just as well I did this for 4 nights worked out great

 

[Calico Jack]

just recently did a saison and the temps around here are in the 50's or 60's. If you're having problems with keeping the temps up, use a shielded lightbulb in a box. you'd be surprised how much heat they give off.

 

[Saccharomyces]

I am planning on doing a belgian golden strong ale this Christmas with my family. I have been reading that temp control is fairly important in acheiving the right level of esters and aromas from those begian yeasts, and I want to start around low to mid 70's and work up to upper 80's over about a 5 day period. I read somewhere (don't remember where) that somone used a heating pad with a digital control on it to keep their carboy at the right temp through primary fermentation. Has anybody done this or heard of this before?

I used the Golden Ale strain on a Tripel, I pitched at 65*F and let it slowly warm up to room temp around 72*F. I would not ferment too warm with that strain since a relatively clean profile goes along with the style. OTOH I did a Belgian Pale Ale I pitched around 68*F and warmed up to 80*F. It came out wonderfully well balanced with lots of yeast character.

No matter what you do I recommend you keep it in the mid 60's until the lag phase is past, so you don't get fusels. There is nothing worse than a great tasting beer you can't drink because it gives you a massive hangover.

 

[lordbeermestrength]

sounds good guys. I'll just plan on pitching around 65* or so and letting it take off on its own. I think I'll be using either WLP500 or 570. I usually use more neutral yeasts so this is a little change for me.