Newbie Temperature question

[zombeefood]

Hi Everyone,

I started my first batch on Friday, and I'm looking for a little assistance. I wanted to start as simple as possible, so I bought a Brewhouse Stout kit, with the pre-made wort. I was a little concerned about the temperature in my place, so I place the primary fermentor in a large tub of water to keep it cooler. The floating thermometer in the water tub has been around 77-78 farenheit.

There definitely has been some activity in the fermentor, as there is brown residue above the brew line reaching to the lid, and I was planning on moving it to the secondary fermentor tonight.

My question involves temperature control. The guy at the brew store told me that temperature wasn't that big of a deal for a stout, and it would just ferment a little faster. After having read more online, I think I may have been misinformed, and that I should have been periodically adding ice to bring down the water temperature by about 5 degrees farenheit.

Now that it has been at 77-78 degrees for the first three days, am I going to end up with terrible beer? If I start adding ice once I move it to the secondary fermentor will it help, or is the damage already done?

Thanks in advance.

 

[flars]

It all depends upon which yeast you have used. Most ale yeasts in the high 70° fermentation temperatures will produce off flavors. Your local uninformed supplier may be thinking stouts have have such strong flavors you won't notice anything bad. May be partially true, but you will not get the best stout flavors if you would have fermented in the low 60°s. Temperature control for the first two to three days is critical.
Leave it in the primary. Secondary fermentation is a misnomer. No fermentation happens in the secondary vessel. Secondaries are used to clear a brew or for addtions.
Look up swamp cooler with the addition of a fan. This arrangement can cool your fermenting wort up to 8° - 10°.

 

[IvanTheTerribrew]

Yup pretty much everything the post above me states. Temp control is a pain, if you plan on brewing more my best advise to make your brews better is figure out temp control for heat and cold.

But yes you will likely end up with some off flavores that may or may not be helped with putting it in a secondary. If it smells like green apple you definitely should leave it in a secondary fermenter for a good 2 months and it may go away. But yeah that shop attendant def doesn't know what he's talking about. If you want to learn more I'd suggest getting books like

Designing Great Beers and Brewmasters Bible.

Good luck!

 

[BigFloyd]

My question involves temperature control. The guy at the brew store told me that temperature wasn't that big of a deal for a stout, and it would just ferment a little faster. r having read more online, I think I may have been misinformed, and that I should have been periodically adding ice to bring down the water temperature by about 5 degrees farenheit.

Now that it has been at 77-78 degrees for the first three days, am I going to end up with terrible beer? If I start adding ice once I move it to the secondary fermentor will it help, or is the damage already done?

Thanks in advance.

Temperatures at pitching and during fermenting (especially the first 4-5 days) are extremely important to making good brew. The guy at the brew store gave you some very bad advice. I would seriously question anything else he might tell you about brewing beer. If it's the owner, find a new shop. If it's an employee, try to find a discrete way to let the owner know that the guy is giving out very flawed advice to customers.

Assuming that you're using something like S-04, you've been fermenting about 12-15*F too high. If you're using Nottingham, anything above 68*F is asking for trouble. Since it's been up in the high 70's for a few days, I'm afraid that the damage (off flavors and fusels) has been done. Cooling it now will only cause the yeast to fall out to soon before finishing the job.

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but it is what it is.

 

[evrose]

Hi Everyone,

I started my first batch on Friday, and I'm looking for a little assistance. I wanted to start as simple as possible, so I bought a Brewhouse Stout kit, with the pre-made wort. I was a little concerned about the temperature in my place, so I place the primary fermentor in a large tub of water to keep it cooler. The floating thermometer in the water tub has been around 77-78 farenheit.

There definitely has been some activity in the fermentor, as there is brown residue above the brew line reaching to the lid, and I was planning on moving it to the secondary fermentor tonight.

My question involves temperature control. The guy at the brew store told me that temperature wasn't that big of a deal for a stout, and it would just ferment a little faster. After having read more online, I think I may have been misinformed, and that I should have been periodically adding ice to bring down the water temperature by about 5 degrees farenheit.

Now that it has been at 77-78 degrees for the first three days, am I going to end up with terrible beer? If I start adding ice once I move it to the secondary fermentor will it help, or is the damage already done?

Thanks in advance.

As a general rule, if anyone tells you that fermentation temperature control is not important (for whatever reason, in whatever style), I'd immediately ignore pretty much anything else that person has to say regarding brewing.

Most ale fermentations do best in the mid-60's, bearing in mind that fermentation is exothermic, meaning that the temp in the carboy/bucket is likely a few degrees higher than the surrounding room temp.

77-78 is way too high for most ale yeast. You'll have beer, and it will likely be drinkable, but it won't be the best it can be.

It's probably too late to "save" this batch. Most activity that produces off flavors occurs in the first few days, after which temp becomes less important (not NOT important, just less).

You'll have a beer. Bottle it, drink it, learn from it. Good home brewing is about learning and improving your process. Relax, learn, enjoy.

 

[woozy]

The guy at the brew store told me that temperature wasn't that big of a deal for a stout, and it would just ferment a little faster. I think I may have been misinformed, ....

Now that it has been at 77-78 degrees for the first three days, am I going to end up with terrible beer?

Because great beer and terrible beer are the only two options? And that you only get great beer if you do everything perfectly?

It's actually simple. If you have poor temperature control you *always* run the risk of off-flavors. That doesn't mean that you *will* have off-flavors. That doesn't mean you will *notice* the off-flavors. And that doesn't mean that if you notice the off flavors the beer will be terrible. And finally that doesn't mean that if you *do* have good temperature control you won't have off-flavors anyway.

So to answer the question, should you have exercised good temperature control? The answer is yes.

I swear I'm going start carrying a cattle prod and everytime some poster posts "I didn't do everything perfectly; will my beer be terrible?" I'm going to give him 40,000 volts.

!!!!!NO!!!! It means you didn't do everything perfectly and no-one's going to give you a gold-star and you don't get the bragging rights to post this batch on the refrigerator. It doesn't mean the beer will be bad. It doesn't even mean that the beer won't be best beer every created in the history of the planet.

It *only* means that you engaged in a bad practice when you could and should have engaged in a better practice for more consistantly better results.

 

[Exportjo]

I'm afraid the damage is done, just have some Tylenol handy for those headaches from the hard alcohols produced. I'm curious how you added the ice to cool your fermentor, I would highly recommend you do NOT add ice into your fermentor. Dilution of your beer and possible infection problems can and will arise.

 

[zombeefood]

Thanks for the information from most of you.

For the record, I wasn't adding ice to the fernenter, but to the water tub that the fermemter was in.

I swear I'm going start carrying a cattle prod and everytime some poster posts "I didn't do everything perfectly; will my beer be terrible?" I'm going to give him 40,000 volts.

Do you notice how it says "Beginners Beer Brewing Forum"? That's because it's for questions from people like myself who haven't done this before. Thanks for being such a dick about it.

 

[twistr25]

One other thing to note, almost no matter what, leave your beer in primary for 10-14 days. Check your gravity, then check again 3 days later. If it's stable, feel free to move to your next step. If you move it before it has finished you could risk bottle bombs or a really sweet beer that has not fermented all the way.

 

[woozy]

Do you notice how it says "Beginners Beer Brewing Forum"? That's because it's for questions from people like myself who haven't done this before. Thanks for being such a dick about it.

I prefer to call it tough love.

Bottom line, making beer is easy and it's very forgiving. Oh, you can spend years mastering it and sweating out a perfect beer from a mediocre beer. And they won't all be derby winners straight out the gate; somewhere an uninspired newbie with no skill will whip out a beer that will merit no more than "nice first attempt". But for the most part everyone's going to whip out decent drinkable beer.

But that's a far cry from "will my beer be terrible" which is just painful masochism. I know you didn't mean anything by it; you heard someone mention something and you didn't do it and you are worried it will affect your beer poorly. But asking "will my beer be terrible" is just debasing yourself. If beer making was that hard and if we were regularly kicked in the teeth in our attempts with continually terrible beer, 70% of us would have quit after the second attempt.

"Will my beer be terrible" is wallowing, man. Stop beating yourself up. You deserve better than that. Okay, maybe I should have said I'd like to grab every wallower by the collar, shake them off, kiss them on both cheeks and send them into battle with a rousing speech.

But, no, a cattle prod's more my style. "You ... did ... NOT ... **** ... up ... that ... badly! ZZZaaPPP!"

Anyway, you did great with the frozen bottles. I'm sure your beer will be great. At worst I imagine it will be decent. But if you call it "terrible" again I *will* get out the cattle prod. As the saying goes "Listen, you little ****; I'm going to beat you and pound you into the gutter until you learn to have some self-esteem!"

 

[DrNecropolis]

. But if you call it "terrible" again I *will* get out the cattle prod. As the saying goes "Listen, you little ****; I'm going to beat you and pound you into the gutter until you learn to have some self-esteem!"

Holy crap!

Did you know my dad?

 

[woozy]

Holy crap!

Did you know my dad?

I *am* your dad. Why are you wasting all your potential on this beer making crap! Why don't you do something more constructive with your time! And, geez, give me some more of your homebrews; I know you can spare them.
====
Anyway, I do apologize to the OP if s/he thought I was being particularly harsh. There are just *so* many _hundreds_ of "is my beer ruin/ should I dump it/ do I have a one in a thousand chance of salvaging" threads that you just want to shake people and shout "get a grip; you made *one* mistake". It's like buying a new car and then writing "I just found out I was supposed to get the oil changed every 3,000 miles and I've gone 5,000 and I haven't done it yet; do you think I'll be able to get a few hundred dollars when I trade it in or should I just accept that now that I've ruined my car I won't be able to recoup anything?"

Anyway, instead of feeling bad that I treated you like a dick, you can try feeling good that I think correcting a mistake one day late will have minor if any consequences. I just told you your beer will *not* be terrible! That's a *good* thing, isn't it? I mean you didn't *want* to be told "Man, you *blew* it! Give up now!" did you?

 

[DrNecropolis]

I *am* your dad. Why are you wasting all your potential on this beer making crap! Why don't you do something more constructive with your time! And, geez, give me some more of your homebrews; I know you can spare them.
====
Anyway, I do apologize to the OP if s/he thought I was being particularly harsh. There are just *so* many _hundreds_ of "is my beer ruin/ should I dump it/ do I have a one in a thousand chance of salvaging" threads that you just want to shake people and shout "get a grip; you made *one* mistake". It's like buying a new car and then writing "I just found out I was supposed to get the oil changed every 3,000 miles and I've gone 5,000 and I haven't done it yet; do you think I'll be able to get a few hundred dollars when I trade it in or should I just accept that now that I've ruined my car I won't be able to recoup anything?"

Anyway, instead of feeling bad that I treated you like a dick, you can try feeling good that I think correcting a mistake one day late will have minor if any consequences. I just told you your beer will *not* be terrible! That's a *good* thing, isn't it? I mean you didn't *want* to be told "Man, you *blew* it! Give up now!" did you?

LoL!

I get your original post.. I modded a massive saltwater fish forum before..

Same questions over and over, same self beating..

I understand your post was in jest.. I (and hopefully he didn't) think you were being serious about it.. sometimes you just need to have an over the top vent..



OP:

People used to brew beer in clay in the dirt with primitive tools and fire.. I think you will be okay, seems pretty forgiving!

 

[woozy]

No, the OP's right. I shouldn't have been a dick. I'm sorry.

I wasn't intending to insult the OP for asking a stupid question (it was a good question) but to dismiss the self-berating nature of the "will my beer be terrible" worry. (NO! Your beer will *not* be terrible! You should *not* berate yourself over this!) But saying I want to take a cattle prod to every one who asks if they ruined their beer comes off as though I'm annoyed with the questions and not the self-berating so I apologize for giving that impression.