G'day all
I'm a brand new brewer and I've just put down a 20L Bacchus Brewing Rock & Timer fresh wort kit as my inaugural attempt at making my own beer (I'm not affiliated with them in any way but if you have the chance to buy anything off the lads at Craftbrewer you should do so, particularly in store - super helpful and knowledgeable; I will be back).
I pitched dry Safale US-05 into a bunnings 30L storage drum (with the wort of course) and completely forgot to take a starting gravity reading but am pressing on irregardless.
I knocked together a Styrofoam box to try and keep my ferment temperatures more or less correct but it fell apart in about a day so now I've just covered the drum with wet T-shirts that I stuck in the fridge for a few minutes and have a fan blowing onto the whole setup (and I stick a couple of frozen 2L coke bottles in the sides for good measure).
I'm fermenting in a spare bathroom which holds a steady 24-26 degrees all day and unfortunately my temp control is only getting me to somewhere between 20 and 22 degrees in the fermenter (I'm using a stick on thermometer which has a brighter color on the '22' then a more subdued purple/blue type color on the '20' so I guess it's somewhere in the middle). When I leave the setup overnight (with no fan blowing) it is somewhere between 22 and 24 in the morning (the bottles melt and a lot of the water drains out of the shirts).
I understand this day/night temperature fluctuation is not ideal and the ferment temp is a little high but how badly am I really likely to be killing this brew? I was planning to dry hop (30g Galaxy) after fermentation but if I have totally stuffed the brew with the high temperatures and 2-4 degree swings then I might save opening the sealed pack and keep them for my next effort (a BIAB is my plan - pending a better fermentation temperature solution ... I'm researching as we speak).
The yeast packet (or, rather, the spec sheet from the fermentis website) says US-05 is 'safe' up to 24 degrees but I've read a couple of threads here that say 18 degrees is the sweet spot (with some folk having fermented at around 21 and had OK results). Anyone got any experience with fermenting US-05 consistently in the upper part of its range (22-24 deg)?
In case there's any other new brewer types who read this I plan to drop an update here as I progress; I've got some krausen happening and a bit of trub in the bottom so I know it's fermenting (or is disastrously infected) and I will start taking gravity readings this afternoon or maybe tomorrow to see where I'm at.
Cheers lads - I'm excited to have started my brewing journey and I look forward to getting further down the path as time goes by (all assisted by the fantastic resource that this forum is)
I'm a brand new brewer and I've just put down a 20L Bacchus Brewing Rock & Timer fresh wort kit as my inaugural attempt at making my own beer (I'm not affiliated with them in any way but if you have the chance to buy anything off the lads at Craftbrewer you should do so, particularly in store - super helpful and knowledgeable; I will be back).
I pitched dry Safale US-05 into a bunnings 30L storage drum (with the wort of course) and completely forgot to take a starting gravity reading but am pressing on irregardless.
I knocked together a Styrofoam box to try and keep my ferment temperatures more or less correct but it fell apart in about a day so now I've just covered the drum with wet T-shirts that I stuck in the fridge for a few minutes and have a fan blowing onto the whole setup (and I stick a couple of frozen 2L coke bottles in the sides for good measure).
I'm fermenting in a spare bathroom which holds a steady 24-26 degrees all day and unfortunately my temp control is only getting me to somewhere between 20 and 22 degrees in the fermenter (I'm using a stick on thermometer which has a brighter color on the '22' then a more subdued purple/blue type color on the '20' so I guess it's somewhere in the middle). When I leave the setup overnight (with no fan blowing) it is somewhere between 22 and 24 in the morning (the bottles melt and a lot of the water drains out of the shirts).
I understand this day/night temperature fluctuation is not ideal and the ferment temp is a little high but how badly am I really likely to be killing this brew? I was planning to dry hop (30g Galaxy) after fermentation but if I have totally stuffed the brew with the high temperatures and 2-4 degree swings then I might save opening the sealed pack and keep them for my next effort (a BIAB is my plan - pending a better fermentation temperature solution ... I'm researching as we speak).
The yeast packet (or, rather, the spec sheet from the fermentis website) says US-05 is 'safe' up to 24 degrees but I've read a couple of threads here that say 18 degrees is the sweet spot (with some folk having fermented at around 21 and had OK results). Anyone got any experience with fermenting US-05 consistently in the upper part of its range (22-24 deg)?
In case there's any other new brewer types who read this I plan to drop an update here as I progress; I've got some krausen happening and a bit of trub in the bottom so I know it's fermenting (or is disastrously infected) and I will start taking gravity readings this afternoon or maybe tomorrow to see where I'm at.
Cheers lads - I'm excited to have started my brewing journey and I look forward to getting further down the path as time goes by (all assisted by the fantastic resource that this forum is)
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