too cold to brew?

oconn

I am as yet without a heat mat/ belt. I read about lagers being brewed at lower temps. would it be ok to brew a lager now given our cold temps ? I am out all day so the apartmentis cool enough till the heating kicks in in the evening. would this suit brewing a lager or do I still need to ferment the first few days at above empty house temps ? I stick my fermenter into a cupboard in the kitchen. for my last brew ( 4-5 weeks ago) I covered it with tin foil and some old wooly jumpers as=nd it semeed to work out fine but now temps are dropped another bit........I might get a brew belt anyway as I will be in usa for a few days with work and there is a good shop just up the road www.home-brew.com ....

noby

An old sleeping bag or blanket will do the same job as a brew belt. Keep the bin off concrete floors too.

oblivious

not sure at what stage of brewing you are at

Lagers can be tricky and unforgiving it you get a warm day. You could try blond ale or Kolsch using Nottingham dry yeast it will full attenuation the wort, much like larger yeast. It also has good tolerance to low fermentation temperatures, allow this strain to brew lager-style beer

Also what noby said

bigears

Lager yeast needs lower temperatures (typically 8 to 12 degrees). Much higher and you lose the 'clean' flavours you expect in a lager, much lower and the yeast will go dormant. If you're using a dried lager yeast like Saflager S23 you should chuck in two packets as the yeast needs to work harder and get a head start. If you're using a liquid yeast you'll need to make a big starter.

Once primary fermentation is complete you should raise the temperature to about 16 degrees for 24-28 hours. This is called a diacetyl rest and allows the yeast to get rid of some undesirable compounds. At this stage it is common practice to rack to secondary and lager (store cold) for a number of weeks. Generally the advice here is to drop by a couple of degrees a day until just above freezing and hold it there until you're ready to bottle/keg. In practice it's difficult to reduce the temperature this precisely so you could move it to gradually colder rooms until you reach the lowest temperature - e.g. put it in the fridge or in the shed.

As oblivious already said, brewing good lagers is a challenge and needs close monitoring. For what it's worth I followed all the steps above with a lager and I still wasn't happy with it. I have yet to discover where I went wrong as I've been doing ales since.

Another option is to use a clean ale yeast like Safale US56 which will ferment anywhere between 15-22 degrees. This is a clean yeast anyway but it's cleaner again at the low end of the range. With this you could brew a 'pseudo lager'. I've used this yeast for a few different beers now and it's excellent.

noby

I think this quote sums it up:
"Making light lager beer is like going to the beach in a thong. You better have all your parts in place or it's going to be ugly."
- Tom Dargan, brewer for the Gordon Biersch Restaurant & Brewery in Broomfield, Colo.

rubadub

Make sure it is well aerated and at a decent temperature to begin with, and use a starter. One yeast gets a good aggressive start it can survive well. The blankets are a good idea, brewing beer generates its own heat, so this will keep the warmth in and help against the fluctuating temps in the house too.

bigears

My failed lager got me curious so I started searching for threads on S23. I found several different posts about this yeast having 'fruity' and 'vinegary' profiles. This might be one of the culprits.

What I found more interesting (and you may well wonder why but here goes anyway) was the heritage of the US56/Wyeast 1056/White Labs WLP001 yeast. As I said I'm a big fan of 56. It's allegedly the strain used by Sierra Nevada Pale Ale who in turn sourced it from a now defunct brewery called Ballantine - they brewed a "Ballantine IPA" that was apparently very highly regarded. I've heard a lot of people recommend Nottingham Yeast as being very clean; well, it appears that US56 is a mutation of Nottingham

Ballantine Brewery used Nottingham in their ales. When the brewery was going under back in '78, Ken Grossman went and visited with the master brewer and it is purported that he brought back the yeast to his new fledgling brewery(Sierra Nevada Brewing Company) and from there it mutated to what we know now as California Ale yeast.

oconn, sleeping bags/old quilts etc. can be very effective insulators. a brewing belt can be useful but you need to watch it closely as it can lead to your fermentation temperature shooting too high. You may want to put it on a timer and switch on for a certain amount of minutes every hour. try putting a stick on thermometer on your fermenting bin; it won't give the exact temperature of your wort but you can use it as a guide.

oblivious

Some nice information on this tread, I love the quote noby. I just mention Kolsch as it a hybrid style along with alt ales.

What about a Schwarzbier (Black Beer), a little dark malt may mask some flaws if they are present and fermented with US56 or Nottingham.

noby

You could also use a lager yeast at ale temperatures, and brew a steam beer. Keeping it at the lower range will avoid some of the ale characteristics.

guildofevil

I've seen Nottingham mentioned a few times and I have to agree. I'm a big fan.

It's versatile, attenuates very well, has a high alcohol tolerance and has a recommended fermentation range of 14C to 21C, although it will slow down a bit below 17C.

Apparently it produces a fairly clean, lager like beer, at lower temperatures.

You should also be aware that Danstar Nottingham and Gervin English Ale yeast are one and the same yeast.

oblivious

That’s good to know, grape and grain sells it

guildofevil

It's my main workhorse actually. I've got a dark mild in secondary, since Saturday and a strawberry beer eating away at pulped strawberries right now.

The yeast is simply a single pack of Gervin English Ale yeast, which I rehydrated and pitched into the mild. I then used the yeast cake of the mild to ferment the strawberry beer.

Yeast really is amazing stuff.

It takes a special kind of person to have a favourite micro-organism. Mine is Saccharomyces cerevisiae, with Saccharomyces uvarum and Brettanomyces bruxellensis a close second and third.

oconn

thanks for all the replies....Im still only a beginner....I think i will try"
What about a Schwarzbier (Black Beer), a little dark malt may mask some flaws if they are present and fermented with US56 or Nottingham "
as i prefer darker maltier beers anyway.....I just dont want the house like a sauna all day because i want to brew.....I like the cold....

oblivious

If you house is like a sauna then it maybe to warm for example, if the room you brew in a room 22c say for example at high fermentation your beer could easily be 27-29c or more. That’s too high for most ale yeasts and can result in off flavour and bad hang over causing compounds. If you have access to a shed you could brew there, keeping the fermentor cover with a towel and Styrofoam if you have it.

guildofevil

Safeale US56 is another good option, as it ferments at 15C-24C.

Wrap the fermentation vessel in something to insulate it, as Noby suggested and the natural heat generated by the yeasts own respiration, should keep the temperature reasonably steady and well within the comfort zone of either US56 or Nottingham.

The heating doesn't come on in my house when I'm out either and I haven't felt the need to attach my heating belt yet.

Adeptus Titanicus

oblivious wrote:

...if the room you brew in a room 22c say for example at high fermentation your beer could easily be 27-29c or more. That’s too high for most ale yeasts and can result in off flavour and bad hang over causing compounds...

Oh Crap

I've got a carboy sitting behind me with a London Ale yeast in itin a room that's generally about 21-22 degrees (21.7 right now ). Should I be expecting trouble? I just racked it to secondary this evening and it smelt/tasted quite fruity, which I took as a good sign. Should I keep it at a lower temp for secondary?

noby

My incling is to not to worry. At the early stage of vigirous fermentation the fermentation can increase the temp by a few degrees. You've past that stage now, so what's the use in worrying?
Fermenting at the higher range will produce the fruity flavours, good for ales, not good for lagers.
You could lower the temp for secondary, should help clear the beer.

oblivious

oconn wrote:

thanks for all the replies....Im still only a beginner....I think i will try"
What about a Schwarzbier (Black Beer), a little dark malt may mask some flaws if they are present and fermented with US56 or Nottingham "
as i prefer darker maltier beers anyway.....I just dont want the house like a sauna all day because i want to brew.....I like the cold....

Jamil Zainasheff on the brewing network has a podcast this week about Schwarzbier if you’re interested, here it is


http://www.thebrewingnetwork.com/archive/Jamil11-20-06.mp3

or here

http://www.thebrewingnetwork.com/archive.php

beardybrewer

I'm brewing today and fishing out my immersible heater. My last brew (Belgian Strong Ale) surely got too cold, especially as our heating went out a couple of days. I got the heater from the local pet store, made for aquariums. Did a good job last winter of maintaining temp. Just took an extra bung, drilled a hole for the cord, took off the plug, squeezed thru the cord, and wired it back up. Worked great.

bigears

Hi Newkie,

What temperature range does the heater cater for?

guildofevil

bigears wrote:

Hi Newkie,

What temperature range does the heater cater for?

And what did it cost?

Adeptus Titanicus

My mate who brews with me also happens to keep tropical fish. He said it should cater for a range of 15-30 degrees and should cost less than €20.
Here's where he gets his fish stuff:
http://www.aquatics-online.co.uk/catalogue/heaters_thermostats_heating_cables.asp. He reckons the visitherm (see about half way down that page) is the best as they have good temp control, but generally they all allow you to set temp to the nearest degree. You can get them to cater for different volumes of water, so a small one (50w or less woth some brands) would do up to 35 litres.

Nice idea!

<edit>
My mate mentioned that aquariums normally have a pump to get the water flowing so the temp would be even trhoughout the tank. If the liquid is static you may get an uneven temp profile. I was worried about the possibility of the wort "burning" at the surface of the heater, however, the action of the yeast swirling the wort about should act like a pump for the first couple of days anyway and keep it moving.
</edit>

beardybrewer

bigears wrote:

Hi Newkie,

What temperature range does the heater cater for?

Sorry for the delay. These heaters vary by wattage.. somewhere there is an recommendation for wattage/gallon. I have a 50W one which does an adequate job even with the heat off in the house. The fermenter is indoors, not in the shed. If I wanted to keep it in the shed I'd get maybe a 100w, but depending on the make they get quite long which determined my decision as I wanted the heater to fit easily in my fermenter. Also its just the right diameter that fits through the hole for the bung in the cap so its easily removed (I can pull it out and turn it up if need be). So anyhow, its done a great job of keeing by latest batch at 22 which might at worst drop to 21 at night.

Oh, and it cost €22 at the local fishstore. Mine is Resun. I used to keep a reef tank and visitherm is good. the best in the industry is Ebo-Jager