What do you all do? Do you keep temp control only for active fermentation or control temps until racking? It would be cool if i could free up my ferm chamber every week or so for a new batch…Who has success with only controlling temps for the first week?
That’ll depend greatly on the yeast strain and length of fermentation needed based on the OG.
For me, fermentation is complete, I don’t mind letting the temp raise a bit to free up the chamber.
[quote=“stompwampa”]That’ll depend greatly on the yeast strain and length of fermentation needed based on the OG.
For me, fermentation is complete, I don’t mind letting the temp raise a bit to free up the chamber.[/quote]
So with a 1.040 cream ale using us05 do you think i should be good with only 5 days of temp control
I can’t say. In my experience, US05 gets going pretty good and is done actively bubbling in a week.
However, I’ve had a couple batches where US05 didn’t even start bubbling the airlock for almost 3 days.
That said, airlock activity doesn’t mean fermentation is complete either.
With US05, yes, I would be okay letting the temp rise after a week assuming it is no longer bubbling away.
For a yeast that likes the low 60s, I would make sure fermentation is done first.
I only control temps for the first week or so, too. Depends on whether or not I need something else in my ferm chamber.
Generally I keep temps same until I cold crash but it’s just laziness since I don’t have much brewing going on. I would not be concerned to move to warmer temps after primary is done if I needed the space. I’ve found the temp of wort at time of pitching is the critical part. I am now pitching yeast morning after brewing to ensure wort is cool enough. In the past I rushed pitching yeast right after chilling wort for fear of infection… Surprisingly, 70-80F wort takes 6-8 hours or so with fridge set to 40F to get wort at 60F. With fridge set to 30F wort ends up near 50F after 6-8 hours which is still a bit high for lagers. Not an exact science, best to measure and pitch a tad cooler…
It might depend on your ambient temp and stability - I would want the temp to be in the upper 60s and low 70s at most and to not change more than maybe 5F in 24 hours. One way to smooth this out is to put the fermenter in a large tub of water which will act as a thermal buffer.
When I see the airlock slowing down I generally let it warm a bit. At this point the heat given off by the fermentation is not going to boost the temp up much and I’d rather it maintain the temp as long into the end of ferm as poassible. So I think you could move your fermentor out of the controlled chamber once it slows.
I usually pitch low and ferment about 64/65. I let it stay there for the first few days then bump it up to 67/68. After a week I take it out of my fridge and put it my little beer storage closet which usually stays in the upper sixties/low seventies (except for super hot days in the summer). Most of my english ale are usually all but done by the time I take them out. The American ales using 001 on the other hand… sometimes they are done, sometimes not. The my last IPA I made with 001 took almost 2 1/2 weeks to finish.
For ales week 1 is temp controlled and, if it has slowed way down, I bring to room (basement) temps so I can put the next batch in the fridge. Bigger beers I will keep cool at least 2 weeks.
