Natural Temp Of Fermentation

[Oatlands Brewer]

Hi guys

Have put down my first brew and was wondering on what the wort will maintain as a temp on its own...

The reason is ive been fairly nazi on the temp and have been flicking between the fridge and the belt like a loon.....I even went out to the brew shed at 2am this morning becasue i thought it might drop to far ( i live in the middle of tassie and we still are having frosts in the morning here....) sad i know ...but i think im enjoying brewing

I spose i should give a quik run down of the setup..i have a Glass fronted fridge(working) and a Heater belt..ive mounted a inside/outside thermo on the fridge with the Outside probe in the fridge and a strip thermo on the fermenter(i think ill buy a tempmate before my wife kills me)

Anyway.....the ferm has been going since thursday and took 24hr to start and i have been trying to keep it around 20c the thing now is for 24hrs the temp in the fridge has been 18 and the temp on the fermenter is seemingly stuck on 22c with no heating on.

 

[buttersd70]

Fermentation is an exothermic process, ie it creates it's own heat. So the actual wort temp will always be higher than the ambient temp, whilst fermentation is active.

edit: the specific temperature difference varies based on too many factors to worry about on a HB level; suffice it to say that it's usually ~ 2-3C difference. YMMV.

 

[marlow_coates]

Firstly, don't trust the 'stick on' thermometer, as they are rarely accurate.

Secondly, relax a little.

If the brew is in a fridge, remember that fridges are made to maintain temperature, so even though it is frosting outside, the fridge temp inside should fluctuate a lot less. Also, altering the temp of 23L of liquid does not happen quickly, it will take a couple hourse at least to significantly alter.

It is worth getting a decent thermometer, and sit it in a vessel of water in your fridge. This way you can get a pretty close temp reading of what your brew is likely to be at, without need to touch the actual liquid.

The temp the brew sits at during fermentation is important, but fluctuating temperatures wildly is not great for the beer, so switching from heater to chiller constantly could be damaging.

If you have an accurate temp probe, either sit it in the beer (cleaned of course) or tape it to the side of the fermenter. And use this as your gauge.

Now that I think about it, what sort of yeast are you using? Lager or Ale?
I am assuming it is an Ale yeast as you chasing 20C.
If it is, then 18C is just fine, better in many respects.

Marlow

 

[Oatlands Brewer]

Its the Coopers packet ale yeast.

Your right ive noticed it takes about 2 hrs to move the temp on the fermenter.

 

[jkirky]

Its the Coopers packet ale yeast.

Your right ive noticed it takes about 2 hrs to move the temp on the fermenter.

The coopers yeast is fine at 18c...

Even if it drops to 16 it will still work, just slowly... I have experienced this before...

So yeah, dont panic, just try to keep the temp around 18-20 and you should have quite good beer!

 

[D.lycle]

Whats a seconday?

Just kidding. If youre adding fruit after transferring the beer off of the flocced yeast, temp isnt critically important. I mean, try to keep it close, but the amount of fermentation youre going to get from the sugar in the fruit is minimal, so any flavor from the yeast is going to be negligible.

 

[warra48]

Save yourself a whole lot of trouble for future brews.

Bite the bullet, and buy a TempMate from CraftBrewer.

Then find yourself something better to do under the doonah on those cold nights.

 

[under]

I just use a big esky, fill it up with tap water, and put my fermenter into it. It covers about 3/4 or more of my fermenter. I then add a few 2L ice blocks until it gets down to 16-18 deg. Then I put one 2L block in the morning, one at night. It seems to stay around the same temp day/night.