I did a brew last week that was kept at 64F all week. Well today I added another brew to my chamber and moved the temp probe from the first to the second. Well of course the chamber came on to cool the second down from 72 to 64F. Well I just took temps and it ended up cooling the first brew all the way down to 53F! Now primary ferment is done on this one. But I just thought hey with the second brew fermenting and it keeping that pale at 64F 54 or 55F is probably where my first brew will finish it's second week in the primary. A 10F drop in temp sounds pretty drastic to me. I don't have a heater system(yet) as I didn't think I was going to need one. How bad is this kind of temp swing on a beer? It's a wheat beer if that makes a difference.
Odd ale fermenting temp question.
- Thread starter Cimerian
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Hex23
Well-Known Member
I doubt that it will hurt the beer at all. But, it probably did slow down the yeasts ability to clean up or condition the beer. The long term flavor profile of the beer was likely locked in during the first week at 64F. I'd go by taste and SG to see if you need some more time at a higher temp to cleanup any yeast byproducts or reach FG. If it's a tart wheat beer, you may not be able to tell whether there's remaining acetaldehyde to be cleaned up. I think wheat beers in general ferment faster, need shorter time to condition, and taste better young, so the 10 degree drop may not have affected things much at all.
