Secondary temperature

[gigemeh]

Do you guys think it'd be safe to have a beer in secondary fermentation in higher temperature?

I ask this as my fermentation fridge only has so much capacity, and I'd like to move beers out of there whenever possible. Do you think it'd be ok to have the secondary fermentation take place around 74F?

 

[Hammy71]

Fermentation usually shouldn't occur in the secondary. Its main purpose is to allow the yeast and other sediments to fall out and clear your beer. Since the yeast have hopefully already did their job before you transferred your beer the temperature doesn't matter. I often keep my brews in my fermentation chamber for the first week or so, then after fermentation is done I take the carboy out to make room for another. The room I keep them in is kept in the mid 70s. You'll be fine.

 

[gigemeh]

That was my assumption and is what I wanted to hear. It's always good to get a second (third, fourth) opinion.

 

[user 21663]

I actually raise the temperature of my beer a couple days before I cold crash it to help the yeast clean up.

 

[iijakii]

To build on this, do you need to transfer to a secondary for this purpose?

IE: We know that leaving it in primaries and skipping secondary causes no issues (I'd like to avoid this subject since it always seems to derail threads). Once the yeasties have finished fermenting at a week or so and the FG is stable, is it OK to just move the carboy out to warmer temps? Or do you need to get the beer off the trub to avoid those higher-temp related esthers?

 

[user 21663]

To build on this, do you need to transfer to a secondary for this purpose?

IE: We know that leaving it in primaries and skipping secondary causes no issues (I'd like to avoid this subject since it always seems to derail threads). Once the yeasties have finished fermenting at a week or so and the FG is stable, is it OK to just move the carboy out to warmer temps? Or do you need to get the beer off the trub to avoid those higher-temp related esthers?

The ester formation will mostly take place during primary fermentation stages. There's no issues with leaving the beer on the trub for a couple weeks ( some don't even touch it until 3 weeks - I can't wait that long ). By raising the temp a bit, the yeast will get a bit more active and reabsorb some of their by-products since there is nothing else for them to eat. I would just move the carboy to a warmer spot but protect it from light.

 

[iijakii]

Also, does it matter what temperature you dry hop at?