Fermentation at 82!

Beerens · Jan 20, 2010

I brewed my third batch of extract. My original gravity came out to 1.073. I pitched the 75 deg yeast into 70 deg wort.

I put it in a room in which 5 gal of water stays at 60 deg and 65 deg with a brewbelt. I put the pail in the room at 70 deg. I had the brewbelt on at three gal mark and I had also put a large garbage bag over the top to keep the light out. I put a thermometer strip on the next afternoon and was at 82 deg! The Nottingham yeast was going off. I have since got it down to 65 deg. It is still going along three days later.

How did the temp get so high and what can I expect in the flavor? How much of a temp change can I expect from the fermentation process? How do you adjust the temp to compensate for fermentation and how do you change it once fermentation slows down?

Suthrncomfrt1884 · Jan 20, 2010

That brew belt isn't set to any certain temp. It's basically used to raise the temps of your beer by about 5-10 degrees. So if you were brewing in a 70 degree room, then the actual temps of your beer were closer to 75-80. Add to that the fact that the fermenting process creates heat of it's own, and I'm suprised you were only at 82.

Best bet is to control the enviornment around the fermentor and not the actual liquid itself. If you have an old fridge or freezer, hook up a temp controller to it and set it to a certain temp. Get rid of the brew belt unless your house gets in the 50's.

On a side note... Try not to get into a habit of cooling down a high fermentation temp. Once it gets that high, you're better off letting it go. The yeast will create lots of esters at higher temps, but it's nothing that will make your beer undrinkable. BUT... If you have a high temp and all of a sudden cool it down to the 60's (like you did here), you risk confusing your yeast. They will assume that it's time to go to sleep and you'll have a beer that's left unfinished.

Beerens · Jan 21, 2010

I have a room in the house that stays at a consistent temp of 60 deg in the winter because we close it off from the rest of the house. I thought this would give me the best chance of keeping a consistent temp. The rest of the house increases and decreases twice a day. I do not have a fridge, though I am looking. Can I use this room and not use the brew belt? Will the fermentation process raise the temp enough?

Yooper · Jan 21, 2010

Beerens said:
I have a room in the house that stays at a consistent temp of 60 deg in the winter because we close it off from the rest of the house. I thought this would give me the best chance of keeping a consistent temp. The rest of the house increases and decreases twice a day. I do not have a fridge, though I am looking. Can I use this room and not use the brew belt? Will the fermentation process raise the temp enough?

That's pretty much what I do. You should be able to ferment most ale yeast strains at those temperatures, but I'd suggest looking at the ones that are particularly noted to go below 60 and still work well. For dry yeast, nottingham works well at low temperatures- I've gone as low as 59 degrees with it. For liquid, I've used pacman yeast right at 60 and it worked very well. An advantage is the fermentation produces very little esters, so you get a very 'clean' almost lager-like finish.

One other thing I do that is quite easy if I need to raise the temperature a bit is to use a cooler with wheels, and put the fermenter inside the cooler. I add water to make a water bath, and use a cheap aquarium heater to get the water to 66 degrees. I float a thermometer in there, and also use a "stick on" thermometer on the fermenter (near the top, above the water bath since water seems to ruin them!) to monitor the temperatures. So far this winter, I haven't done that. But I might if I had a yeast strain that I really wanted to ferment at 66-68 vs the 60-62 I'm doing right now.