60 degrees, or 75 degrees

Hey kids,

New to non-Mr-Beer home brewing, and am literally cooking up my first batch as I type. A 5 gallon batch of Irish Red Ale with “Safale s-04” yeast.

Instructions I got from my local shop say I should let this ferment around 66 degrees. Problem is that my house has poor insulation, and the temps swing a lot throughout the day almost everywhere in the house. Now I do have a fridge in the garage I can use for this…if I leave it off, it will settle around 75. If I turn it on to it’s warmest setting, it will be around 60.

Question for you is: what is the preferable temp, given these options?

Maybe fridge on, but with a blanket or something wrapped around the bucket?

Most everyone will tell you to never ferment above 70*F if you can help it and they’re absolutely right. If you’re really in control then I recommend low to mid 60’s. Particularly for the first week or so.

If you refrigerator will actually be a stable 60 degrees at the warmest setting, this is PERFECT for fermenting an ale. I do all my ales in a refrig set to 58-60* and they come out nice and clean. Now they do not finish in 2 days like many report here, but that is not my goal.

+1

If your fridge really sits at 60, ferment in there. Let it sit for two to three weeks then bottle.

Fridge. You could even rock it at 60 for a while then take it out for a few days to make sure it finish up.

From what I’ve looked into, a lot of commercial breweries, who have expensive fermenting tanks that can keep constant temps, start fermenting in the low 60s, and then up the temp to the high 60s or low 70s after the majority of primary fermentation has taken place. This temp increase activates the yeast to clean up some more of the sugars, and some of their own biproducts, to further clean up the beer, after they’ve done the bulk of the heavy lifting.

If you get a cheap temp controller for that fridge, you can do this rather effortlessly.
You can put them together yourself from ebay sources, but this one’s ready to go, and it looks sweet!

http://www.ebay.com/itm/321109035209?ss ... 1555.l2649

+1.

Don’t forget that a fridge at 60F still means the beer will be a few degrees warmer due to heat generated during fermentation. You shut off the cooling after the peak to keep the temp from dropping too fast and causing the yeast to quit early. Esters and the stuff you want to avoid, tend to be produced early in fermentation.

[quote=“Worts_Worth”]From what I’ve looked into, a lot of commercial breweries, who have expensive fermenting tanks that can keep constant temps, start fermenting in the low 60s, and then up the temp to the high 60s or low 70s after the majority of primary fermentation has taken place.[/quote]This is common practice among homebrewers, too, although you need to be careful with ramping too soon or too warm (68F is as high as I go) - the greater volume in commercial fermenters exerts pressure on the yeast that inhibits the production of off-flavors and allows them to ferment at higher temps and produce beer faster.

Thanks for all the advice guys. It’s currently in the fridge, and the bucket temp reads ~63. Sounds like this is close enough to ideal.

I planned on only doing a 2 week primary (I don’t own a secondary just yet) before bottling. Would you suggest I wait another week?

[quote=“seandamnit”]Thanks for all the advice guys. It’s currently in the fridge, and the bucket temp reads ~63. Sounds like this is close enough to ideal.

I planned on only doing a 2 week primary (I don’t own a secondary just yet) before bottling. Would you suggest I wait another week?[/quote]

63 is ideal, well done

I would leave it for 3 weeks - just incase. It won’t hurt the beer, and may even help it.

[quote=“seandamnit”]I planned on only doing a 2 week primary[/quote]You can’t plan your primary, it may be ready in 1-2 weeks, or it may take 3, the only way to know is to take hydrometer readings. I’m usually good to go at 3 weeks, and that’s after raising the temperature after a week.

+1

Hydrometer shipped broken :frowning:

They’re sending me a new one, and I’m sure I’ll have it well before the beer will be ready.