Can a too low secondary fermentation temperature be increased after a week?

[rafaelpinto]

I got an ale batch (US-05) that was fermented at 68ºF for around 10 days, then the sediment was removed and the beer was moved to a Secondary Fermentation for 7 days by now, around 41ºF.

Since yeast has to be active to refine beer taste, I wonder if it is useful to increase temperature now back to around 70ºF. Is another 7 days at this temperature enough to refine the taste? My fear is that all the sediment and cold break will go back to the beer and those seven days lost. Also, could I add table sugar to help yeast get back to life?

Finally, can I just bottle right now and let the yeast do its work inside bottle, with the help of prime sugar?

What do you fellow homebrewers think? If I do can increase temperature now, can I still dry hop at this temperature?

Thaks a lot

 

[BigFloyd]

1) Take a gravity reading. If it's done, bottle it at that temp. If it's not done, let it warm back up to 70*F to finish. Do not add sugar except for priming/carbonation. When it warms up to 70 in the bottles, the yeast will go back to work.

2) For that style of beer, a secondary was unnecessary and increases the risk of oxidation. You could have just left it in the primary until done, dropped the temp to 35-40*F for 5-7 days (called cold crashing) to clarify it and then went straight to bottling.

3) if you want to dry hop, do it at the current temp a few days and then bottle.

 

[aiptasia]

Ok, contrary to popular opinion in the homebrew world, there is no sound reason to rack a beer off the yeast and into a secondary fermenter unless you are adding an adjunct to that beer. Letting the beer finish in the primary on the yeast cake is the best practice and produces a superior beer than one that's been racked off the yeast too soon. There are a few reasons why this is the case:

Diacetyl rest: Yeasts produce a lot of precursor alcohols such as acetylaldehyde and diacetyl early on in the fermentation process. Many of these alcohols are responsible for "off flavors" in beer, such as green apple flavors and butterscotch flavors. If you rack your beer off of the yeast too soon, there won't be enough yeast to go back and re-consume the precursors and convert them into more pleasing phelonics and fruity esters in the finished beer. The best way to combat these off flavors is to just let the beer sit for an extra week after your gravity readings have stopped dropping. Once the beer reaches it's final gravity, let it sit another week so the yeast can re-consume those early alcohols. This is known as a Diacetyl Rest.

Autolysis: Autolysis occurs when yeasts die under pressure and create a burnt rubber smell and taste in the beer. I hear it's quite noxious, but I have never once had the opportunity to smell or taste it. The reason is, for most homebrewers, Autolysis doesn't occur unless the beer sits on the yeast cake a tremendous amount of time. I've never heard of it occuring at all in batches under 20 gallons or without a secondary infection killing off the yeast. I've had several five and ten gallon batches sit for two months in the primary with nothing but improvements on those beers (they were high gravity beers). I even had a batch of beer sit for four months on the yeast cake and it turned out great. The reason it happens in larger batches is when the yeast settles out, the weight and pressure of the beer over the yeast can cause it to compress and die. Autolysis is a much bigger problem for commercial brewers and isn't much of a problem in homebrew batches just due to the size/volume.

Infection: Every time you rack a beer into a new container, you run the potential risk of exposing your beer to an infection source. It could be your racking cane, it could be a scratch in your secondary fermenter, it could be misuse of a sanitizer or a hidden clump of krausen under an o-ring, or maybe just a wild yeast or some lactobacillus that isn't quite dead yet floating around in the air or a water drop that gets into your beer.... any time you re-rack your beer to a new container, it's that much more potential risk for it to pick up an infection.

That all being said, the only reason to use a secondary is if you're adding additional adjunct ingredients to your beer and you just can't put them in the primary fermenter. For example, you fermented in a glass carboy and want the beer to sit on a few cups of cherries and an ounce of american oak chips for extra flavor for a week. If you can't get those adjuncts into the primary fermenter, you can use the secondary.

And yes, you can warm up your beer.

 

[flars]

I got an ale batch (US-05) that was fermented at 68ºF for around 10 days, then the sediment was removed and the beer was moved to a Secondary Fermentation for 7 days by now, around 41ºF.

Since yeast has to be active to refine beer taste, I wonder if it is useful to increase temperature now back to around 70ºF. Is another 7 days at this temperature enough to refine the taste? My fear is that all the sediment and cold break will go back to the beer and those seven days lost. Also, could I add table sugar to help yeast get back to life?

Finally, can I just bottle right now and let the yeast do its work inside bottle, with the help of prime sugar?

What do you fellow homebrewers think? If I do can increase temperature now, can I still dry hop at this temperature?

Thaks a lot

Do not bottle this beer at 41°. Your hydrometer readings will be stable, but in this case that does not mean fermentation is complete. At 41° the yeast is dormant. Warm it up to about 70°. Get the yeast back in suspension. After three days at about 70° take a specific gravity reading. Take another one in three days. If the readings you get are really high you have a stuck fermentation. If that happens come back to the forum for help on that.

A beer that completes the fermentation process in the bottle will create bombs.

Leaving your beer in the primary for three to four weeks, on the yeast cake and sediment, will give you a beer just as clear as one moved to a secondary vessel. It will most likely taste better also.

 

[rafaelpinto]

I have taken gravity readings before moving beer to the secondary already, it was stable. Thank you guys for all the info, I will sure remember it in the next batch. Here in Brazil there is this "rule" that you must do a secondary fermentation no matter the kind of beer.

Alright, I will add the hop bag today for dry hopping and keep temperature at 41ºF then. After a week a will bottle and keep it at 70ºF.

But please, clarify if is there any problem on raising temperature right now to 70ºF during dry hopping...

 

[RM-MN]

There is no problem raising the temperature. The yeast and trub that have settled will stay settled unless there is some sugars that the yeast will still want to eat. If so, that will stir up the trub until it is done and then the trub will settle quite quickly.

That rule about having to secondary beer isn't confined to Brazil, I think it is worldwide because the kit instructions always seem to say so. As a group, homebrewers are challenging that but once in print, always the rule. It's really hard to change once something is written.

 

[rafaelpinto]

Based on what you guys informed me, I raised temperature back to around 70ºF and added 100g of a hop mix I used on Hop Standing (8 types of hops - I know its kind of silly).

Lets see how it turns.

 

[aiptasia]

No problem in raising the temperature when it's dry hopping. The major source of off flavors based on heat happens when the yeast wind up stressed out by fermenting too warm. After the fermentation takes place, normal ambient temperatures are generally just fine, if not beneficial for your finished beer. It helps rejuvenate the yeast and aids in carbonation when you're ready to bottle or keg.

However, there's limits to that. Being in the fine country of Brazil, i'm sure you're much closer to the equator than we are in Los Estados Undios (Pardona me, soy hablo espanol muy poco y muy mal). Please make sure not to expose your beer to extremes in warm temperatures. The 70's are ok, but if you exceed that, the beer will begin to suffer.

 

[rafaelpinto]

No problem in raising the temperature when it's dry hopping. The major source of off flavors based on heat happens when the yeast wind up stressed out by fermenting too warm. After the fermentation takes place, normal ambient temperatures are generally just fine, if not beneficial for your finished beer. It helps rejuvenate the yeast and aids in carbonation when you're ready to bottle or keg.

However, there's limits to that. Being in the fine country of Brazil, i'm sure you're much closer to the equator than we are in Los Estados Undios (Pardona me, soy hablo espanol muy poco y muy mal). Please make sure not to expose your beer to extremes in warm temperatures. The 70's are ok, but if you exceed that, the beer will begin to suffer.

Alright, I got a thermostat on my freezer so Im fine.

By the way, we speak portuguese here in Brazil, not spanish

 

[kh54s10]

"Rules" are meant to be broken. A secondary, more accurately described as a bright tank, Is for letting the beer clear or if you are adding something like fruit, dry hopping a large amount, or doing long term bulk aging.

Since fermentation is completed in primary, and given time the beer will clear, the only real reason to do a secondary is to add something. Even then you can add to primary if you want to.

It is becoming more and more common just to do a primary then bottle. I rarely do a secondary.

Low secondary temperatures should not be a concern since nothing is happening except sediment falling out of solution. When bottling, select your priming sugar amount based on the fermentation temperature seen. Keep the bottles at about 70 degrees F for about 3 weeks then test a bottle. If it is not fully carbonated, wait a little longer.