Temperature change

[rahkim]

My beer has had it's time in the primary and I am ready to bottle. Unfortunately, it's been sitting in a temperature controlled fridge in my garage and the outside temp has dropped the past couple of days making the temp in the fridge drop below the 64 bottom range of my ale. If I bottle and move it into my house for a week at 70, will that temperature change mess things up?

Thanks!

 

[phyllobeddo]

If you've reached your FG, you should be good. I think that you want your bottles to condition for about three weeks at 70 degrees (room temp) to reach proper carbonation.

 

[ABVIBUSRM]

60-64*F is a great temp. move it into the house to bottle condition..i think you are good..A more important question is what temp did you pitch at and what was the temp for the first 5-7 days of fermentation?

 

[brewkinger]

It all sounds good to me. The only thing that I will contribute is something that I became aware of recently with a couple of batches of beer that I made.

Long story short, I made 3 batches of beer back in early May 2014.

2 of 3 of them I kept in my barn/garage for fermentation because that time of year it remains a nice even temperature out there and it is very conducive to ferment temps. Both of those batches fermented at around 63 degrees (internal beer temps).
The 3rd batch got fermented a little higher temp, around 68 in the basement.

I bottled all the batches on the same day and the 2 that were outside were WAY overcarbed. The 3rd batch was fine.
Same bottling equipment for all the batches, so I ruled out an infection.

Several months later, I noticed in BeerSmith that there was a place to change the temperature that the beer fermented at.
So I read up on this topic and discovered that there can be varying amounts of CO2 that remains in the beer from the fermentation.

So as a test, I went back and checked in BS on those previous recipes.
All 3 of them had a value of 68 degrees entered.
I changed the temp values for the 2 beers to the temps of 63 and lo and behold, the amount of priming sugar needed to carb them dropped from 4.2 oz DOWN to 3.85 grams.
So, my take on this is that it is a real factor.

A batch that I brewed later in the summer and used a swamp cooler to keep cool at 65 degrees also got a little bit less sugar than it would have gotten if I kept the 68 degrees in the BS profile.

Perhaps others can chime in on this matter.

 

[rahkim]

I pitched at about 70 and I have kept it at 64/65 for two weeks in the primary.

 

[ABVIBUSRM]

I pitched at about 70 and I have kept it at 64/65 for two weeks in the primary.

you are golden just bottle condition at room temp in the house 3 weeks

 

[rahkim]

I may need to leave in the primary tonight. Will it be ok if the temp drops to 60 before I bottle tomorrow?

 

[ABVIBUSRM]

I may need to leave in the primary tonight. Will it be ok if the temp drops to 60 before I bottle tomorrow?

yes you will be fine..all the risk of off flavors are pretty slim at this point cause you fermented at a good temp range..you are all good dude.

 

[bd2xu]

Also the off flavors in an ale will come with too hot fermentation. Too cold will just put the yeast to sleep. If fermentation is really done, then going cold is not bad. A lot of people "cold crash" drop beer close to freezing for a few days, for most of the yeast to drop out and clear the beer before bottling. Even then there's plenty of yeast to carb.



Primary: Maibock, Helles (first partigyle batch)
Secondary: Mojave Red, Irish Stout
On tap: Orange Belgian IPA, Turbo IIPA
Bottled: Dwarven Gold Ale, La Fin Du Mond clone, Hefeweizen

 

[rahkim]

That is very interesting. So if you keep your temperature within the range of the specific type of beer (ale, porter, stout, etc.) does it matter if it varies a few degrees? Im asking this because I would like to make some beer this winter and ferment in the house, but our temperature drops from 70 to 65 during the night time. Will a 5 degree temperature difference mess with the fermentation?

 

[ABVIBUSRM]

That is very interesting. So if you keep your temperature within the range of the specific type of beer (ale, porter, stout, etc.) does it matter if it varies a few degrees? Im asking this because I would like to make some beer this winter and ferment in the house, but our temperature drops from 70 to 65 during the night time. Will a 5 degree temperature difference mess with the fermentation?

try to keep temp swings within 3 degrees of the yeasts temp range ..i usually ferment in the mid range of the yeasts ideal temp

 

[JimRausch]

Routinely I start my beers at the lower end of the yeast temp. range, then raise the temp. by 4-5 degrees toward the end of fermentation to keep the yeast active. Then when ferm. is finished I always chill it. Even if it's not in true 'cold crash' territory(below 45) I think it helps clear my beers.
The priming calculators that I have seen ask for the highest temp. of the beer after it's finished fermenting. Warmer temps. drive off more CO2, and no more is being produced. So, in brewkinger's examples above, it makes sense that the 63* beers will have more CO2 in them than the 68* beer, requiring less priming sugar.