Temp Question

[Psywar]

Hello, all!

I just finished brewing a Brown Ale. It has been fermenting over a week and finished a few days ago.
During fermentation, I have been using 1-liter soda bottles filled with water and then frozen. I set the bottles next to the fermentor and wrap a towel around them.

I have been keeping the temp pretty steady at 60F.

Now that it is done fermenting can I stop worrying about the temp of the ale and just let it sit an age/condition?

I think if I stop with the ice bottles it will eventually reach around 72/75F in my brew closet.

Thank you for any help!

 

[owmatooth]

I'd be ok with leaving it to age in the low 70's. you might even see a few more points chewed off when the yeast warms up a bit. are you kegging it or bottling it? if you're bottling, go ahead and condition in the bottles, if kegging then just keep the oxygen off of it while it ages.

 

[mongoose33]

That will be fine. When I brew an ale I typically am at 63 or 64 degrees (ferm chamber); when the krausen has fallen and bubbling slowed in the airlock I then ramp the temp to 71 degrees to allow the yeast to finish and clean up after themselves. I'll leave it there for a few days, then either back to the original temp for a bit more, or crash it to 32 degrees prior to kegging.

 

[Psywar]

Thanks!
Yeah, I am going to go into secondary sometime next week and let that condition/age for about 6-8 weeks and then it is going into a keg.

 

[owmatooth]

don't bother with the secondary. negatives of oxidation outweigh positives of getting off the trub. too much oxidation in racking and then head space. if you must rack it, do it into a keg so you can purge the headspace with co2, then cold crash and rack to serving keg for carbonating. Lots of lively threads on here about racking to secondaries, and even the original authors of how to brew have rescinded their recommendation to rack.

plus its less work not to rack

 

[65C]

I have an old fridge that is big enough to fit a carboy - on it's lowest setting it keeps it about 17C - so I don't need any thermometers etc.

For the first 3 to 7 days I ferment in there with a blow off pipe - it's made a big difference to the beer - after that I move the carboy to room temp without any problem - but I wrap in a towel to stop light getting to beer

My understanding is temp only matters for first few days after that getting warmer can help

The biggest issues I had when I started brewing was the yeast temp in first few days - using that cheap fridge made a huge difference

 

[Psywar]

owmatooth > Interesting.. So I can pretty much just age in primary for as long as I want with no issues then?
I was kinda under the impression that you could end up with off flavors keeping the trub n junk in there for long periods of time.
If that is not the case then I will def. start just aging in primary and when I am ready to keg siphon into the keg and cold crash it.

65C> Dude I agree with you totally on the beer quality by fermenting in a fridge.
When I was in the process of buying my kegerator setup I decided to make a lager since I had no beer to put in the kegs or kegerator.
The lager I made was my first beer and it was phenomenal. I had buddies of mine who brew told me I should be really proud of this beer.
Then my other 2 brews I have done so far on my own setup I have fermented in my closet and they have just been so-so.
So I think temp controlled fermentation is the way to a great beer.

My only real issue is my limited space. I would need to find a mini fridge that would be just big enough to fit a single brew bucket or carboy. That is about all the room I have to spare. I have not had any luck finding a decently cheap mini fridge that can accommodate this yet.

 

[GHBWNY]

That will be fine. When I brew an ale I typically am at 63 or 64 degrees (ferm chamber); when the krausen has fallen and bubbling slowed in the airlock I then ramp the temp to 71 degrees to allow the yeast to finish and clean up after themselves. I'll leave it there for a few days, then either back to the original temp for a bit more, or crash it to 32 degrees prior to kegging.

This^

 

[65C]

I was kinda under the impression that you could end up with off flavors keeping the trub n junk in there for long periods of time.
If that is not the case then I will def. start just aging in primary and when I am ready to keg siphon into the keg and cold crash it.

I've heard people say keeping on primary trub (and no secondary) actually helps with any off flavours as there is more yeast working it

 

[owmatooth]

I've switched to primary only, and my rule of thumb is three weeks in primary for most of my ales. But, I've got a guinness clone going now (Ode to Arthur in recipe section) that is tasting unbelievable right now at almost 4 weeks in primary, and I'm shooting for the patience to leave it another two.

You mentioned in your last post you were going to siphon to keg then cold crash it. You meant that the other way around, right? I move my 2-3 week old primary into a refrigerator (32 degrees) for 24-48 hrs to cold crash first, then I rack to my keg with little difficulty keeping sediment out of the siphon. If you cold crash in the keg, i suppose after the first few pints you've drawn off the sediment, but I haven't tried it this way.

After I rack off the sediment into the keg, I take the carboy and rack the top half of the trub into a few mason jars to save the yeast for my next batches. I keep the mason jars in the fridge for months and they work great for me on the next batch.

 

[Psywar]

I sadly do not have room in my kegerator to cold crash my fermentation bucket. I am in the process of searching craigslist for a mini fridge that will hold a single bucket or carboy.

As far as keeping yeast I have a funny/not funny story. So I brewed a Cyser a few months ago for this coming Christmas.
Well, I wanted to save the yeast and make a few test batches of different Cysers in 1-gallon jars.

So I harvested the yeast from the Cyser and spent quite some time washing the yeast or whatever it is called to make sure you have mostly yeast and little trub.
Well, the process was long but I felt like it went well. I went to go use the yeast and I could not get any of it to activate.
I was banging my head trying to figure out why for a couple days and then it dawned on me that the yeast I used only had a tolerance of 14% abv and my Cyser ended up with an FG that was in the 14% range. So all my yeast was likely dead or overworked.
So I had a good laugh about that, but at the same time, I kind of cried inside lol.