High fermentation temp.

[BostonJohnS]

I am brewing a blue berry wheat beer and using Safale 05 American ale yeast. Saturday will be 2 weeks into fermentation in my primary. My basement is still between 58-60 degrees, especially since the cold snap this past week (was 36 degrees when I left for work yesterday.) As such I have had a heating element around the carboy with a thermo coupler set at 66 degrees with +/-1 degree. Sometime today, I suspect one of the kids was checking it out and pulled the probe from the carboy (it is taped to the opposite side of the carboy as the heat source held in place behind some bubble wrap.) As such, the ambient temp was about 60 degrees and turned the heater on. Once I noticed, I unplugged the heating element and put the probe back where it belongs and I got a temp of 80 degrees and is slowly dropping. It has been about an hour and I am already to 77 degrees. There is still vigorous activity coming from the air lock and I have some condensation in the top of the car boy.

So Question, should I be worried about damaging the yeast or potential inactivity? Ultimately this will be bottled and I am concerned that potential yeast issues would yield poor carbonation.

Am I being paranoid, bottle as normal and enjoy or should I bottle now? I was thinking of pulling a sample to get the gravity to see where I am, but the recipe called for 3 weeks in a primary fermentation.

Pics for reference.







Thanks for any advice. This is maybe my 12 or 13 brew so I am still fairly green.

 

[boydster]

I think you're OK here. 80F certainly isn't going to kill the yeast and cause any sort of autolysis flavors. As a matter of fact, yeast love being in warm temps like that, and even higher, but they don't make very tasty beer if you start out high like that. So no harm done to the yeast. On to the beer. Primary fermentation should be complete by now, and judging by the pics it is. The bubbling in the airlock is almost definitely due to CO2 coming out of solution due to the temperature change (it's solubility goes down and temperature goes up). If this had happened during the first 3-4 days of fermentation, it would be a problem. Given that you're well into the conditioning phase at this point, I doubt you have anything to worry about.

Now... wheat beers are meant to be enjoyed fresh. Check your gravity, taste the sample, and as long as everything looks/tastes the way it should get that batch bottled up!

 

[ColoHox]

Fermentation can generate a lot of heat, in some cases 10 degrees above ambient. Considering your basement ambient temp is 58-60F, you probably shouldn't be using a heat at all. US-05 does best between 59-70F, and with a strong pitch can even do great below 59. However, at temps higher than the upper range, it will produce off flavors such as fruity esters and fusel alcohols. The yeast will be fine for carbonation, however the off-flavors will already be present in the beer.

You should definitely check the gravity and see where you are at. Don't bottle until you are stable at final gravity.

 

[m1k3]

I agree...

After two weeks your fermentation should be finished. You are mostly conditioning at this point. I often ramp up the temp after 4 days to ensure the yeast finishes completely. The flavor is pretty well developed and the yeast growth it complete by that time.

Warming up and then and cooling will help yeast flock. But it looks like your yeast has mostly dropped (at the bottom of the carboy).

 

[BostonJohnS]

Thanks Folks! Good info and advice.

 

[m1k3]

Thanks Folks! Good info and advice.

It will probably be the best beer ever and you'll be forced to repeat this process every time!

But seriously, let us know how it turns out. Too many thread just die and it makes you wonder what the final result was.

 

[BostonJohnS]

I will keep this updated.

I will be bottling tomorrow. I normally use 3/4 cup of priming sugar. This being a lighter summer style beer, I would prefer a little more carbonation. I am thinking of upping it to a full cup simply because

1. I want a little more carbonation
2. I only used one vessel and did not re-rack so I did not loose the volume in the bottom of the carboy that I normally would loose.

One thing I have noticed that my beers with 3/4 cup of priming sugar have less carbonation than I would like.

I am off to do a little more research and reading on the topic, but any thoughts are appreciated.

 

[boydster]

You will get more consistent results with your priming sugar if you measure it by weight and use a priming calculator like this one. You simply enter in the amount of beer you are collecting in your bottling bucket, the warmest temperature your beer was at during fermentation, and the volumes of CO2 that you want (2.7-ish is probably the ballpark you want to be in for a light fizzy beer).

 

[BostonJohnS]

Thanks.

While I was searching, I found these two calculators and both have me using about 4.6-4.7 oz for a 5 gal batch. When I get home, I am going to get a more accurate temp (I guessed for a ball park figure)

http://www.tastybrew.com/calculators/priming.html

http://www.northernbrewer.com/primi...wNw&utm_medium=affiliate&utm_source=linkshare

Thanks for the response.

 

[BostonJohnS]

Just an update,

I popped the top on my first bottle of this batch on Friday and it came out great. The temperature spike did not leave any noticable off flavors. I also used the calculator for the priming sugar and it was spot on for what I was looking for.

Thanks for the help and feedback folks!