Lager fermenting

[Jamie02173]

I have recently brewed a lager that recommed 10 degrees celsius. It is brewing 6 days from about 10 to 16 degrees c depending on house temp as im not using a fermenter.. if this is a problem is it too late to correct it?

 

[mcmeador]

Can you clarify what you mean by not using a fermenter?

 

[Jamie02173]

Im brewing 2 beers one im using a fermentation chamber.. a fridge with a heatpad and temperature controller, controlling the temperature. So what i mean with the lager im not using temperature control. Im leaving in ambient hoping for the best as im not sure i have the space for another fridge to use as a fermentation chamber

 

[mcmeador]

Ah ok, got you. You may be fine. One thing you could do for the warmer hours of the day is set the fermenter in something like a plastic storage tub with a few inches of water in the bottom and soak a towel and wrap around the fermenter, making sure to leave part of the towel submerged in the water in the tub. As the water evaporates from the towel, it will carry heat away with it and cool your fermenter. That’s what I used to do before I had a chest freezer for temp control.

The first beer I brewed was an Oktoberfest. I bought it not realizing the extra equipment and stricter temp control requirements needed. Luckily it was late fall when I brewed it, so I just stuck the fermenter in my cold garage and hoped for the best. I also wasn’t able to step the temps down to lagering temps as recommended, so when primary was done, I just racked to a secondary and threw it in the fridge. I think the ABV turned out a little lower than expected, but it ended up being a good beer.

 

[mcmeador]

Also, I noticed you have another thread about the beer in your fridge, which is an IPA. You might put your lager in the fridge to give it the colder temps it needs and keep your IPA outside the fridge and use the heat pad as needed to warm it up if ambient temps are too cold. You’d probably need a second temp control to use with the heat pad for the IPA, though. Of course you wouldn’t be able to cold crash your IPA that way, but I’d rather give up that step in favor of making sure your lager turns out ok because your IPA will be fine without cold crashing.

 

[Jamie02173]

Also, I noticed you have another thread about the beer in your fridge, which is an IPA. You might put your lager in the fridge to give it the colder temps it needs and keep your IPA outside the fridge and use the heat pad as needed to warm it up if ambient temps are too cold. You’d probably need a second temp control to use with the heat pad for the IPA, though. Of course you wouldn’t be able to cold crash your IPA that way, but I’d rather give up that step in favor of making sure your lager turns out ok because your IPA will be fine without cold crashing.

Im new to this so still learning i have a fridge a heat pad and a temperature controller. Im wondering if i placed the lager in the fridge and set the temperature controller to 10celcius and remove the heat pad would that work without the heat source. I was also thinking i could use the heat pad ro wrap around my ipa and ferment it, but then im thinking i will need a secondary temp control to ensure it does not heat too high

 

[mcmeador]

I never used a heat source to counteract the cooling when I used a chest freezer. I’m now using a stainless steel fermenter with a temp control coil and glycol to cool mine and am not using the heat side.

If you use both heat and cool to switch back and forth, they’ll be working against each other and running more often to fight each other. Fermentation creates its own heat, so if your cooling overshoots, it will warm itself back up on its own. Just don’t set the temp right at the bottom of the yeast’s temp range, so if it does cool a degree or two extra temporarily, it won’t matter.

I would say the same for heating your IPA if the ambient temp in your room is significantly cooler than the target temp. Use a heat source with a temperature controller to heat it to a target temp and the ambient temp in the room should cool it back down if it overshoots. Again, just don’t set to the top of the range so that an overshoot won’t negatively effect anything.

Just make sure you are attaching the temp probes for your temp controllers to the side of the fermenters and maybe taping a folded up sock and couple of layers of bubble wrap over it to insulate it. That’s what I did to make sure I was getting as close to a reading of the wort’s temp as possible and not the ambient temp. You can also use a sanitized thermowell to insert the probe into the fermenter, but I’ve never done that myself so can’t comment on best practices for that method.