Low Temp Ale?

[BrewStooge]

Hey all, back again and starting up my latest, this time a Liberty Cream Ale, quite the departure from previous batches and in a whole new setup too

Over the weekend I cleared up a small basement room to set up as a brew shop in order to get away from the extra high temps on the top floor, about a 15-20 degree difference, and complete with just about all I need to make whatever comes to mind. :rockin:

Now, the question today is this. I have a American Ale Wyeast Activator 1056 as the yeasty of choice for this one, got everything made up, lively yeast in the pack and all but nothing in the pail yet about 30 hours later. The room is about 59 degrees give or take a couple and I just wanted some feedback. Would this yeast handle a temperature like this or should I warm it a bit? I ask since all my other ones (in the far warmer upper floor setup) where going like all get out by this time.

So should I warm it up, or just RDWHAHB?

 

[llazy_llama]

If you put the carboy up on a shelf, or a chair, or something else to get it up off the floor, maybe... If you use a brewbelt or heater on top of that, absoloutely. Fermentation is going to increase the temp a bit, and even a 1 degree increase would put you within the ideal temp range for that strain. But if you're just going to set it on the floor, I wouldn't do that. It'll probably get quite a bit colder than 59 degrees if you do that.

Just my 2 cents.

 

[Yooper]

59 degrees is just a tad low for this yeast. Can you add a little space heater, to get the ambient air temperature to the 62-64 degree range? Once it starts going, 60 degrees is ok for this yeast strain, albeit at the bottom of the range for this strain. I like fermenting my ales on the cool side of the yeast strain's range- it should give you a nice "clean" profile.

One tip- for liquid yeast, it's recommended to make a yeast starter. It's easy- just add 1/2 cup dry malt extract to a pint of boiling water. Boil it for a couple of minutes, cool it and put in a sanitized growler. Add the yeast and cover with sanitized foil. After two days, you can pitch it into your beer. You can consult mrmalty.com and check out the "pitching calculator" to know the optimum number of yeast cells to pitch for each batch you brew. Even though the liquid yeast manufacturer's say "pitchable" right on the package, generally there aren't quite enough yeast cells in there to ensure the right number for fermentation. Still, it should start going pretty soon. Give it at least 36 hours before worrying.

 

[BrewStooge]

I've got it on a table, so the bottom shouldn't be too cold. May go grab the space heater to get it up a shade though. Thought I had a heat pad around here somewhere but it seems to have gone awol. I'll just give it a bit more time and report back. Once again, thanks much and WOW on the speed of responses!

 

[llazy_llama]

We've had a few reports of igniting heat pads, so I wouldn't go that route. A space heater, on the other hand, sounds like a great idea. As Yooper does, I try to keep my ales around the cooler side of the ideal temp range, although maybe a few degrees above that. I'd shoot for about 64 degrees with that yeast, although I haven't personally used it.

Just keep an eye on the fermenter itself during fermentation (especially the first 3 days!) to make sure that space heater is still needed.

Hope it comes out great!

 

[BrewStooge]

Just to update, the heater worked out and as of this morning it was bubbling away merrily and keeping itself at about 64 even several hours after turning off the heat.

 

[llazy_llama]

Sounds perfect. Here's to that beer coming out even better than you hoped!

 

[BrewStooge]

So not to revive the dead here...

I got around to tasting the results of this one recently, came out with a nice flavor and feel, but a bit high on the hops for what I was expecting. I don't have all the ingredients right at hand here, but I do recall it was 1oz cascade (on the high side around 7% if I recall) for bittering and another oz for flavor at the 60/5 marks. Any suggestions on how to tweak the amounts/time/type to get more of a balance in a future attempt? If it helps the gravities where 1.044 and 1.010.

 

[Yooper]

So not to revive the dead here...

I got around to tasting the results of this one recently, came out with a nice flavor and feel, but a bit high on the hops for what I was expecting. I don't have all the ingredients right at hand here, but I do recall it was 1oz cascade (on the high side around 7% if I recall) for bittering and another oz for flavor at the 60/5 marks. Any suggestions on how to tweak the amounts/time/type to get more of a balance in a future attempt? If it helps the gravities where 1.044 and 1.010.

Well, you can tweak the recipe a bit to get you a slightly lower IBU in the next beer. If you have good notes, that's great because it will help with formulating the next go round of this recipe. If you find the recipe, we can easily help you get a better balance for next time. Sometimes just lowering the bittering hops a tad will do it, and sometimes it helps to add a little crystal malt to the recipe.

 

[BrewStooge]

It's Midwest's liberty cream ale, 6 lb. Gold liquid malt extract and 8 oz. Carapils specialty grains, so nothing real fancy. I've been playing with beersmith some but being still pretty new to this I wouldn't be able to visualize (tastualize?) the difference between 10 and 50 IBU yet.

 

[Yooper]

It's Midwest's liberty cream ale, 6 lb. Gold liquid malt extract and 8 oz. Carapils specialty grains, so nothing real fancy. I've been playing with beersmith some but being still pretty new to this I wouldn't be able to visualize (tastualize?) the difference between 10 and 50 IBU yet.

Well, if it makes you feel better, even a "pro" can't discern a difference of about 5 IBUs. But, balance is the key.

What were the hop schedule, and boil volume? Or, since you have it in Beersmith, what do you come up with for IBUs? I assume you're using the default IBU rating scale, which is Tinseth in Beersmith.

 

[BrewStooge]

Had 60 minutes with one and last 5 with the other in about 2.5-3 galons (I just filled the pot to "reasonably full in a 10"x10" pot). Beersmith says 20.2 ibu so it fits with the guidelines but a bit on the high end.