I hit the search engine, but haven’t really found the answer to this question…
What if I secondary ferment my ale recipes at temps of 40-45 degrees or so? …my basement right now is a steady 40-45 degrees (old farmhouse).
I assume I’ll have to add secondary ferment time, but, how does that affect the beer. And I guess I should also consider, how would it affect bottle conditioning (other than additional time possibly)?
…I have an Irish Red right now, and will have a WryPA ready for the fermentor later tonight.
If primary fermentation was not complete, then temperatures in the 40s will cause fermentation to either cease or to progress very slowly.
In my opinion, there should normally be no such thing as secondary fermentation. Keep your beer in the primary fermenter until it’s totally done fermenting, and don’t rack until bottling/kegging day.
[quote=“Chris Roe”]I hit the search engine, but haven’t really found the answer to this question…
What if I secondary ferment my ale recipes at temps of 40-45 degrees or so? …my basement right now is a steady 40-45 degrees (old farmhouse).
I assume I’ll have to add secondary ferment time, but, how does that affect the beer. And I guess I should also consider, how would it affect bottle conditioning (other than additional time possibly)?
…I have an Irish Red right now, and will have a WryPA ready for the fermentor later tonight.
Thanks![/quote]
If fermentation is finished, it’s a great idea. But you’re really cold conditioning, not doing a secondary. You use a secondary when you’re actually going to add more fermentables. If you’re not doing that, there’s really no need for a secondary. Just leave in primary until fermentation is finished. Then you can either rack to another container or just put the primary in your cold environment. It will clarify and clean up the flavors in your beer. I’ve never known it to have any effect on bottle conditioning.
The “recipes” I have right now all call for racking to a secondary, but I’m guessing that is to help clarify… There are no additions later on that I know of.
Once fermentation is done, I’ll give it a try and see how it goes. I may rack half the batch and keep the original fermentor at mid-60’s and the “sencondary” at mid-40’s and see how much of a difference there is.
I pretty much always cold condition in the primary and don’t recall ever having an issue.
If you do split up the batch I would be careful. You’re going to increase the head space in the primary and possibly have the same issue with the secondary vessel. Unless you have a way to purge with CO2 but even then I would err on the side of caution.
[quote=“Chris Roe”]The “recipes” I have right now all call for racking to a secondary, but I’m guessing that is to help clarify… There are no additions later on that I know of.
Once fermentation is done, I’ll give it a try and see how it goes. I may rack half the batch and keep the original fermentor at mid-60’s and the “sencondary” at mid-40’s and see how much of a difference there is.
Thanks![/quote]
I think the confusion was you said secondary “fermentation” in your original post. The term secondary is sort of a bad term that has become acceptable in the homebrew world to also include second vessel to transfer to to allow your beer to clear. There really is little benefit to doing this other than for procedural purposes like you need to free up your primary or you want to harvest your yeast.
But to do an extended cold conditioning is a very good idea for almost any beer not just lagers. I currently have a Belgian tripel that ive held at 36* for almost a month now, taking small samples every week and its REALLY improved the flavor of the beer. This is another benefit to kegging is that you are basically cold conditioning your beer as you are storing it for carbing/serving. Since I bottle, I don’t always get this advantage as i store mine in bottles at cellar temps and stick them in the fridge a couple days before I’m going to drink them. So I’ve started to do extended cold conditioning in a secondary vessel before I bottle.
