Too Cold?

[Lono]

I brewed the SNPA clone kit from Midwest Supplies a week ago. The first 5 days the beer was fermenting between 68 and 70 degrees. It seemed to be rather vigorous (based on airlock activity). Now with the drop in the weather the temp on the liquid thermometer stuck to the side of my ferm bucket is reading 63 degrees and there is no activity in the airlock.

Is this too low?

The yeast is Fermentis US-05 Safale.

 

[Revvy]

No...the airlock has slowed down because the largest amount of fermentation is over and there's not a lot of excess co2 that NEEDS to be vented out.....Temps in the low 50's make Us-05 go dormant.

.You don't know that your fermentation is slow, or fast for that matter, all you know is that your airlock isn't bubbling in a way you THINK it should.

The fact that bubbling has slowed down doesn't mean your fermentation has stalled, it just means that there isn't enough excess co2 for the airlock or the blowoff to need to vent. All either of those are are vents, valves to release excess co2, but it is not a direct gauge of what's happening in your fermenter. Sometimes airlocks never bubble, but they ferment just fine.

It's perfectly normal for fermentation to slow down as the most sugar is consumed initially, but that doesn't mean fermentation is done nor that fermentation is stalled.

There is still more than likely a ton of work that the yeast are still doing behind the scenes, it's just not dynamic.

 

[Lono]

Revvy,

Thanks for the reply. I do understand airlock activity is not a good judge of fermentation (I have read plenty of your posts ).

My main concern was that the temp was too low for the yeast. I wasn't too worried about the airlock I just wanted to make sure I wasn't setting myself up for a stuck fermentation if there was something I could do about it.

Thanks for the reassurance.

 

[kanzimonson]

Dang Revvy, I think you must have a bat-phone that alerts you when somebody mentions the words "airlock activity" in their posts! I love it