I’ve had pretty good luck with controlling fermentation temp by water bath/swamp cooler method. It keeps it in the low 60s (with ice in the water bath) even when apartment is in the 80s. However once it out of primary and in bottles I don’t do any temperature control. Is this a problem? Normally temperature (at least this summer in Seattle) have been in the 80s routinely.
I suspect that since most of the fermentation is done you wouldn’t get much fusel alcohol formation. However, do you think it might effect my carbonation? Or is that really only related to the amount of priming sugar I have and not necessarily the temperature.
I recently asked this very same question. Mr Conn assured me that it shouldn’t be a problem. As long as you primed with enough sugar, and kept it at a reasonably warm temperature (70ish+ I believe) you should be fine.
The yeast Is only going to consume the remaining priming sugar. There’s so very little that temps don’t really matter for conditioning, other than being too cool.
I did a batch of cream ale last december. Three weeks in primary, one week cold crash in secondary at about 40F with gelatin, then bottled & conditioned @ 70 F for just under three weeks. Put a case in my friends refer & just left the rest where they lay @ 70 F.
A month later (around mid-Jan), I added the remaining bottles (the ones at 70 F) to my refer. Then a few weeks later, my fried and I both showed up at the same party. We both brought a six pack of the cream ale. They were both crystal clear & appropriately carbonated. BUT …
… the ones my friend brought had a great flavor. Mine had a nasty off-flavor. The best I can describe it: a phenolic, almost corriander-like taste. Keep in mind that the ONLY difference between the samples was that mine sat at 70 F (in bottles) for an extra month.
I dumped more than a case.
The difference in flavor between the two samples was extreme. I’m sure that what ever yeast remained (I used Safale S-05) were doing something in the warmer bottles. And I have no doubt that the temperature was a factor (since it was the only real difference). I just wish I had a better understanding of what happened. But for now, I put the beer in the refer once it’s carbonated.
