A few years ago in the last golden days of a late English summer I brewed up a clone of the Dark Star Brewery's lovely Festival Ale. Everything went well on the day and I collected a good amount of beautiful wort. Unfortunately, after fermentation in the midst of a searing (and unusual) heat wave I ended up with an ale that was way more fruity than it had any business to be. It wasn't bad, it wasn't horrible, it just wasn't to style and didn't taste anything like it should have. This my friends, is the peril of trying to brew beer to style with yeasts working outside of their temperature range.
Brewing Great Tasting Beer Using Temperature Control
We all know that yeast (ale yeast in particular) can be a funny old beast " once you take it out of its temperature comfort zone it's liable to do all manner of crazy things: too high and it'll rip through a wort and produce all manner of off-tastes, fusel alcohols and other weirdness in the finished beer. Too cold and it will produce beers of unrelenting blandness, or maybe even give up on fermenting completely, leaving you with a half-fermented and sometimes over-sweet finished product.
Obviously, there are many exciting and high-tech ways to get around the ambient temperature: a brew fridge will enable you to brew lagers in the dog days of summer and Saisons in the midst of a biting winter. You could also try being choosy about your yeast selection: I'm told that the Mauribrew range of dried yeasts are developed in Australia, so are better able to tolerate heat than something like the Fermentis range (US-05, etc.)
All of these approaches are quite satisfactory, but they do involve time and effort, and things like brew fridges take up quite a lot of space. Over the years I've dabbled with all sorts of cunning schemes to combat the ambient temperatures - big buckets full of water with aquarium heaters to sit the fermenter in when it's too cold; ice packs and draped wet towels with fans blowing upon them when it's too hot. But by far my most successful approach has been to just embrace whatever nature throws at me and go with the flow. I now eschew all the fancy equipment and brew with the seasons and match the prevailing temperature.
The Enjoyment Of A Well Crafted Beer
I must admit, I'm quite lucky as I live slap-bang in the middle of England and the temperature variance for the whole year is never much outside of a predictably narrow band of -5C/41F and +25C/77F so it's not like I ever have to contend with real extremes of temperature like some of my US cousins. I find that there's a wide variety of beer styles that I find I can dip in and out of and can always find something that matches with whatever temperatures and the seasons throw at me.
Just to divert for a second: like me, there are a lot of brewers who are relegated to the shed, garage, outhouse or the garden to do our mashing, sparging and boiling - which is fair enough, it's hot, dangerous and (gloriously) aromatic work; but there's only a very few of us who are forced to do our fermentations outside.
Surely It's a heartless partner who condemns the brewer's yeasty offspring to suffer in the frigid air of the garage or shed. If you're unlucky enough to be one of these people, you can stop reading now and go read an article on building a brew fridge...or if you're smart you can go and read an article on how to make good white or red wine (if that's your partner's thing) and soon you'll be fermenting in the warm, I guarantee it.
So with the assumption that most folks are able to at least ferment in the comfort of their home; let's take a look at the various maximum outside temperatures for my little part of the world, the temperature it's likely to be inside my house and which yeast types are likely to be happy at that ambient room temperature:
My Indoor Temperature Chart
You'll note that I've also included a column that shows whether the central heating in my house is likely to be running. Notice how the heating goes some way to maintaining that steady 18C/64.4F in the room where I do most of my fermenting. As you can see from the chart it looks like I'm good to brew ales and stouts all year round " apart from the very hottest three months of the year, as that's when ale yeast is apt to go a little crazy and shred a wort into a mess of hot fusel alcohol.
But does that worry me? No. I can easily get on with my Saisons and Belgian ales when the temperature is above 20C/68F. From what I understand our dear Flemish cousins push their fermentations up to the late 20s. It seems Belgian yeasts over the years have been selected to be pushed hard at high temperatures as that's where they produce those characteristic phenols and flavour profiles that we all love.
Fermentation Temperature Effect On Flavour
Indeed, it appears that some Saison yeasts are happy to do their work at temperature in excess of 30C/86F - the story being that Saison yeasts share some lineage with red wine yeast, which also love to get busy at high temperatures. Some Belgian brewers believe that fermenting Saisons around 18C/64.4F is not worth it, as it just doesn't deliver enough of that prized spicy, dry flavour profile. Maybe you don't need to add all that extra black pepper, ginger and stuff to Saisons? Maybe you just need to let them free rise to whatever temperature they fancy and let them do their work there? Give it a try, what harm can it do!
Notice that any form of bottom-fermenting Lager yeasts are right out in my house - they're only happy at temperatures below 10C/50F for the most part. That's where I may need to invest in a brew fridge, or think about lagering in the shed over winter. Using this approach, I now feel that I always have a style that I can brew - whatever the season. And, having seasonal beer, means that I've always got styles to look forward to throughout the entire year.
About me:
Jon Milloini is just some bloke who mucks about with pots n' pans, grain and hops whilst making a great big mess all over the floor. He also regularly updates his blog Yeastismybitch.com where you can find half-baked reviews of commercial beers, lengthy self-indulgent articles on brewing and (largely successful) recipes for beer.
Brewing Great Tasting Beer Using Temperature Control
We all know that yeast (ale yeast in particular) can be a funny old beast " once you take it out of its temperature comfort zone it's liable to do all manner of crazy things: too high and it'll rip through a wort and produce all manner of off-tastes, fusel alcohols and other weirdness in the finished beer. Too cold and it will produce beers of unrelenting blandness, or maybe even give up on fermenting completely, leaving you with a half-fermented and sometimes over-sweet finished product.
Obviously, there are many exciting and high-tech ways to get around the ambient temperature: a brew fridge will enable you to brew lagers in the dog days of summer and Saisons in the midst of a biting winter. You could also try being choosy about your yeast selection: I'm told that the Mauribrew range of dried yeasts are developed in Australia, so are better able to tolerate heat than something like the Fermentis range (US-05, etc.)
All of these approaches are quite satisfactory, but they do involve time and effort, and things like brew fridges take up quite a lot of space. Over the years I've dabbled with all sorts of cunning schemes to combat the ambient temperatures - big buckets full of water with aquarium heaters to sit the fermenter in when it's too cold; ice packs and draped wet towels with fans blowing upon them when it's too hot. But by far my most successful approach has been to just embrace whatever nature throws at me and go with the flow. I now eschew all the fancy equipment and brew with the seasons and match the prevailing temperature.
The Enjoyment Of A Well Crafted Beer
I must admit, I'm quite lucky as I live slap-bang in the middle of England and the temperature variance for the whole year is never much outside of a predictably narrow band of -5C/41F and +25C/77F so it's not like I ever have to contend with real extremes of temperature like some of my US cousins. I find that there's a wide variety of beer styles that I find I can dip in and out of and can always find something that matches with whatever temperatures and the seasons throw at me.
Just to divert for a second: like me, there are a lot of brewers who are relegated to the shed, garage, outhouse or the garden to do our mashing, sparging and boiling - which is fair enough, it's hot, dangerous and (gloriously) aromatic work; but there's only a very few of us who are forced to do our fermentations outside.
Surely It's a heartless partner who condemns the brewer's yeasty offspring to suffer in the frigid air of the garage or shed. If you're unlucky enough to be one of these people, you can stop reading now and go read an article on building a brew fridge...or if you're smart you can go and read an article on how to make good white or red wine (if that's your partner's thing) and soon you'll be fermenting in the warm, I guarantee it.
So with the assumption that most folks are able to at least ferment in the comfort of their home; let's take a look at the various maximum outside temperatures for my little part of the world, the temperature it's likely to be inside my house and which yeast types are likely to be happy at that ambient room temperature:
My Indoor Temperature Chart
You'll note that I've also included a column that shows whether the central heating in my house is likely to be running. Notice how the heating goes some way to maintaining that steady 18C/64.4F in the room where I do most of my fermenting. As you can see from the chart it looks like I'm good to brew ales and stouts all year round " apart from the very hottest three months of the year, as that's when ale yeast is apt to go a little crazy and shred a wort into a mess of hot fusel alcohol.
But does that worry me? No. I can easily get on with my Saisons and Belgian ales when the temperature is above 20C/68F. From what I understand our dear Flemish cousins push their fermentations up to the late 20s. It seems Belgian yeasts over the years have been selected to be pushed hard at high temperatures as that's where they produce those characteristic phenols and flavour profiles that we all love.
Fermentation Temperature Effect On Flavour
Indeed, it appears that some Saison yeasts are happy to do their work at temperature in excess of 30C/86F - the story being that Saison yeasts share some lineage with red wine yeast, which also love to get busy at high temperatures. Some Belgian brewers believe that fermenting Saisons around 18C/64.4F is not worth it, as it just doesn't deliver enough of that prized spicy, dry flavour profile. Maybe you don't need to add all that extra black pepper, ginger and stuff to Saisons? Maybe you just need to let them free rise to whatever temperature they fancy and let them do their work there? Give it a try, what harm can it do!
Notice that any form of bottom-fermenting Lager yeasts are right out in my house - they're only happy at temperatures below 10C/50F for the most part. That's where I may need to invest in a brew fridge, or think about lagering in the shed over winter. Using this approach, I now feel that I always have a style that I can brew - whatever the season. And, having seasonal beer, means that I've always got styles to look forward to throughout the entire year.
About me:
Jon Milloini is just some bloke who mucks about with pots n' pans, grain and hops whilst making a great big mess all over the floor. He also regularly updates his blog Yeastismybitch.com where you can find half-baked reviews of commercial beers, lengthy self-indulgent articles on brewing and (largely successful) recipes for beer.
