Crap! My temp. is too high!!

[Frodo]

I'm worried about mine too. It took 18 hours for it to start fermenting and it wasn't till after I put it on top of the washing machine. Then It was bubbling away and I woke up this morning and it stopped. My house heated up to 75° and when I saw it that high I turned the AC on to 73°.

Is there anything I should check or just leave it be?

18 hours isn't horribly long for visible fermentation to start. After you pitch yeast it takes a while for them to replicate themselves. During that time they use up oxygen in the wort but are not producing any carbon dioxide, thus you don't see anything happening and think something is wrong. Pitching the correct amount of healthy yeast will help reduce the lag time.

Get a fermometer (stick on thermometer from your LHBS) that you can tape to the outside of your fermenter. Then you'll know what the temperature of the liquid is. THAT is the important temperature to keep track of, not the room temp. A couple/few hours of room temp in the low 70s won't ruin anything, as long as it doesn't stay that warm for so long that the 5 gallons starts to get past 70F too. Temp swings aren't a great thing, but they're tough to avoid if you don't have a fermentation fridge. A water bath as suggested by hangglider will help alleviate the diurnal temperature swings.

EDIT: By the way, your fermentation may have already finished. Only way to know is by checking the specific gravity (with a hydrometer).

 

[pikledbill]

s2, you learned a valuable lesson...i.e. you have a temperature regulation problem. How do you manage that? You tried one method and it didn't work (so you think). Instead of heating the carboy/fermenter directly, try heating a controled space in which you can place your fermeter. You didn't screw up anything, you performed an experiment that yielded valuable information...don't use X-mas lights (if that was really the problem).

In my experience, that is a minor mistake.

Do you have a closet or a similar space that you can try to regulate for temperature? When I was doing this stuff in my house, I used a carboy filled with water in a closet and monitored the temperature of the closet and the carboy for about a week. Holding a confined space to +/- 2-3 degrees throughout the day is easier than trying to control the temp of the fermenter itself in an unregulated space (again, in my experience). A +/- 2-3 degree fluctuation in the controlled space, will regulate the temp in your fermenter +/- ~1 degree (I am assuming 5 gallons here, with insulation)...this change won't even register on a stickystrip thermometer. It takes a while to change the temp of five gallons. Try this in one of your closets.

If your house changes temp via a programable thermostat, run the program on the weekend when you are home, and monitor the change in temp in several closets (all day and all night taking hourly readings - cool thing is you can drink beer while doing this)...interior wall closets will regulate better than exterior wall closets.

Try using a lamp with a dimmer switch to add heat to the closet - if you need heat. Get yourself two electronic heat sensors with an external probe (i.e. a digital temperature guage with a long wire that has a small probe on the end...they are pretty inexpensive). Put one probe inside the closet, the other in your carboy, and the readouts outside the door - so you don't have to keep opening and closing the door to check the temp. make sure to use a towel or something to plug the gap under the door. Once you get it figured out, you never have to worry about temp again...well, until the seasons change.

Building a small stand to keep the carboy off the floor (2"-3") will help...the floor cools faster than the airspace in the closet (if you have a basement...if no basement, the floor will act as a heat sink for your fermenter).

You will get it figured out if it is important to you...

Don't fret, your beer is probably fine, a lot of good comments in here from brewers with a lot of experience. I will echo what others have said: 62-66 is a good range for most ales.

Cheers,
PikledBill

 

[rayg]

1)
4) a 62F ambient temperature will easily result in a 70F ferment as the initial fermentation activity will raise the temp anywhere from 4 to 8 degrees for the first couple of days

I think that's going to depend on what the og is, iow, how much fuel
is being burned. I've never seen the internal temp go higher than 66
with external at 62, but I don't brew high gravity (>1.060) beers.

Ray

 

[s2cmpugh]

I think that's going to depend on what the og is, iow, how much fuel
is being burned. I've never seen the internal temp go higher than 66
with external at 62, but I don't brew high gravity (>1.060) beers.

Ray

My starting gravity was 1.070 for this beer.

 

[Timboosh]

1) 77 won't kill your yeast. (post #3) - that's closer to 100+

2) 77 is outside the working range for acceptable results for most ale yeasts.

3) this does not mean it's ruined.

4) a 62F ambient temperature will easily result in a 70F ferment as the initial fermentation activity will raise the temp anywhere from 4 to 8 degrees for the first couple of days

5) fermentation control with air (sitting in a fridge) is less effective, therefore a 58-60F temp is often strived for. Using a water bath method, the beer temp and water temp are usually very close, so shooting for 62-65 is usually pretty good.

6) it will still be beer. Don't throw it out. Let it sit in that fermenter for 3-4 weeks to clean up the hot alcohol and esters it threw off during that warm ferment.

6) Congratulations on all the learning you just achieved, through your brewing, this forum, the mistakes - it's all good.

7) add your vanilla to the secondary - don't rack to the secondary for 3-4 weeks. Then leave it there a week or so. OR - forget the secondary, add vanilla to the primary in 4 more weeks, let it sit another week, bottle.

8) bottle conditioning - try for 3 weeks at 70-ish.

9) save the christmas lights for the tree.

100% Agree - the first beer I made, before I knew anything about any of the intricacies of beer making (like I know now, lol... not) I fermented too high.

1) it still turned out to be beer - and not bad beer at that
2) I still have a few bottles floating around, probably 6 months later, and some of the off flavors have settled out and it's gotten better. So be patient... I'd bet it'll turn out fine.

I think that's going to depend on what the og is, iow, how much fuel
is being burned. I've never seen the internal temp go higher than 66
with external at 62, but I don't brew high gravity (>1.060) beers.

Ray

Bwahaha - I knew I'd find a reason to post this video somewhere...

I don't know anything about the different factors that would cause temperature to rise more or less, though I'd bet yeast choice and OG would have a lot to do with it... BUT - it does give you something to think about for those of us that don't regularly use temperature control like a fridge or water bath.

* Ambient Air temp does NOT necessarily equal fermentation temp *