Needing some help about a sudden drop in fermenting temp.

[bigken462]

I think I may have goofed once more. On the night of the 14th, I brewed up some Kolsch from a Brewers Best extract kit. Yeast was Nottingham Ale E491.

This thing was purring like a kitten sipping milk for the past 24 hours. Today the outside and house temps started to get a lil higher, but since I have another batch in secondary holding at a steady 68* I was not too worried, but then this new batch had climbed from 68* to about 74* with the fermenting going on and with the house warming I figured I would be needing to do something or it was only going to get worse. The other batch might have rose about 2* but not much.

Before leaving to go to work at 6PM tonight, I was torn on what to do and eventually decided to place it in a oversized pale for some swamp cooling. I have never done this before so I didn’t know where to start as far as how much ice to add. I placed about a gallon of ice cubes in there from the freezer and filled it up about a 1/3 of the way from the bottom with water. Just a bit over the spigot and left for work.

At work I found myself in a position that I needed to come home to change into a clean uniform and checked on the brew. It was still bubbling, but had slowed down drastically from before. Fearing the worst, I lifted the bucket from the pale and noticed the temps was down to about 56* at 1030PM.

How bad will this sudden temp drop hurt the yeast? I'm smacking myself on the head and having a WTH was I thinking moment.

Kenny T

 

[NTXBrauer]

Your yeast will be fine, and have just slowed down a bit due to the drop in temperature. Just let it warm back up to the mid-60s and try to maintain at that temp using frozen water bottles in your swamp cooler. Start with just a few, and closely monitor the temp. When they thaw, have replacements ready to add and re-freeze the the thawed ones and maintain this cycle. Before long, you will know how many frozen bottles you require daily to maintain the ideal fermentation temp. Cheers!

 

[flars]

The drop in temperature will slow the yeast down for a while. May even need to be roused in a few days. Were you using a thermostrip on your fermentor? Was it under water? If it was the wort may not have been as low in temperature as yuo thought.

 

[BigFloyd]

56 won't hurt Nottingham. You can use that strain down as low as 55. However, any yeast that sees a sudden drop of 15-20 degrees may decide to stop eating and go to sleep.

I'm as much concerned for you about letting a Nottingham ferment get up to 74*F. That yeast starts kicking off some off flavors at 68 and only gets worse the warmer it gets.

 

[bigken462]

Yes, the strip was under water. I tried to hang around as long as I could to see if it was raise up some. It did climb just a lil.

I think the temp range on the instructions showed 64-72 range. Grrr, I was actually kinda glad it was maintaining what I thought was a happy temp at 68*. I knew it was going to increase a lil from the activity, but I didn't expect it to raise that much.

My next home project will be a fermenting chamber. This is the second batch in a row I've struggled to maintain a safe range.

This trial by error stuff is getting expensive. lol

 

[BigFloyd]

My next home project will be a fermenting chamber. This is the second batch in a row I've struggled to maintain a safe range.

This trial by error stuff is getting expensive. lol

Just snag a decent used fridge/freezer from Craigslist, add an outlet box with STC-1000 ($20 on Amazon) and you're set. It will be the best $100 you've ever spent on brew gear.

Plus, you can stop wasting any more costly ingredients.