I am currently on day 4 of fermenting my biere de mars, and am getting ready to add my honey addition. I wanted to add it at the last 1/4 of fermentation so the yeast would work on the complex sugars first.
I pitched at 64, let it rise to 66, fermented for 36-48 hours at 66, then raised to 69, now I’ve got it up around 71. Bubbling has slowed considerably, though I haven’t taken a gravity reading just yet as I want to be slightly active when I add the honey.
I am wondering if it matters at what temp I ferment the honey. I obviously don’t want fusels, but want this to be a very dry beer (hence the raising of temp throughout the ferment).
I’m also wondering if I will need to switch my temp controller to chill instead of heat. It may very well be that as I’m only adding a few gravity points to the brew, that there won’t be enough activity to raise the temp of the beer considerably.
So this is a bit more complicated, and I’m not meaning to make a big deal of something that is really inconsequential, but should I cool it back down to the high 60’s? My temp controller is single stage, so I either need to have it set to cool or to warm, right now its ‘warming’ since the yeast are starting to slow down.
So should I cool the wort to 68, pitch the honey, and set the controller to ‘cool’ to 68, or won’t the yeast generate much heat by chewing through some honey real quick?
Probably splitting hairs, but I like to vet out every single minute decision when it comes to my hobby
Depends on your ambient temp - is the fermenter exposed to temps higher or lower than 68F? If you’re adding maybe a lb of honey, I think you won’t see more than 1F added from fermentation activity.
Turn off any temperature controller and let it go at room temperature. If that’s 70 F or so, you know what? You’re probably just fine. In the last 1/4 of fermentation, temperature really doesn’t matter anymore. You know what? I often ferment lagers at 65 F in the last 1/3 to 1/4 of fermentation, and they turn out great. Anyway, honey ferments pretty slowly no matter what you do, so if you’re worried about it heating up or giving off a lot of fusels, don’t. It’s fine, anywhere in the 60s or low 70s. Really. Now if this was the very beginning of fermentation, it’s a little different story. In that case I’d be shooting for like 65 F. But since this is the end, it really just doesn’t matter anymore.
gotcha, thats what I thought. I will usually keep a tight collar on it for the first few days, but then if I need the fermentation fridge, will just bring it out to an ambient temp in the mid-high 60’s.
