Pausing fermentation until I get back in town???

[captainL]

Ok, I am working on a temperature controlled fermentation chamber.

But in the mean time, here is my situation. I have been planning my next brew, Southern Star Burried Hatchet Stout clone. My first big beer around 1.080 or so OG. Normally, I keep my brew in a swamp cooler and exchange water bottles morning noon and night to keep the temp around 65 degrees. I go out of town for work a lot so my wife (who hates beer) is kind enough to keep my fermenter cool for me when I am gone. I am itching to brew but my wife will be out of town for the next 2 weeks while I am in and out every 3 or 4 days.

So......What do you guys think of this??

Brew it up and through it in the fermentor with the yeast (US - 05) and then stick the hole thing in the fridge at 40 degrees or whatever the warmest temp I can get my spare fridge up to. Could I do this and leave it in the fridge until I can get to in a week or two. Then just warm it up to 65 or so and let it do its thing??

Would it slowly ferment or would it halt?

Would I harm the yeast?

Would I risk a serious stuck fermentation?

Or risk infection??

Off flavors??

has anyone done something like this or should I just be patient and wait.....

The other thought is to put it in the swamp cooler except add a shirt to absorb the water and put a fan on it. I am skeptical about this because its hot in houston and we leave the ac at 78 when we are gone, so maybe I could get 73 degrees with a 5 degree temp drop.

Maybe this is just the dumb idea of the day, but maybe someone has tried it.

thanks.

mike

 

[COLObrewer]

Numerous options here, You could wait, or you could pick an appropriate yeast. Lager yeast for 40F in the fridge, saison yeast for 78F in the house. etc, etc. Otherwise, I don't think the yeast would suffer . . . . . . but your beer may.

Also, it seems if you use a swamp cooler with a teeshirt on the fermentor you would be close to US05 acceptable temperatures, no?

 

[Snowhere]

Why not just suck it up and leave the AC dialed down a little, say 70 degrees for the few days you will be gone?

 

[captainL]

You know I haven't even thought of using different yeast. I have used Us 05 only, except for a wit i did. I am also paranoid of having too high of a fermentation temperature due to my first brew having some horrible after tastes...pitched at 80 and fermented at 77 ambient with no temp control.

AC at 70 is tough in houston this time of year $$$$. My wife would kill me if she found out, but you have my gears turning. Maybe ac at 75 and a swamp cooler would be a reasonable compromise. But I would definitely need to rig a blow off tube being unsupervised for the first few days.

Thanks for the ideas.

 

[mburnett274]

get a temprature controler for the fridge