Temp After Racking To Secondary

[johnno]

Hi all,

Whats the opinion on temp control after racking to secondary?
Should you bring the temp up to what is was originally in the primary or can you just leave it.
I use a brew belt and with my last rack last Thursday I decided to not put the belt back on and wait to see how it goes.
It was at 1014 when i racked and yesterday it was at 1012 so its moving along very slowly. Looks like the temps are going to be a bit higher in melb this week anyway.

Cheers

 

[PostModern]

What are you brewing? What yeast are you using? What is the fermenter's temp currently?

 

[johnno]

Ok,
This batch was a Coopers bitter using the yeast that came with the kit.
The primary was being held at 22C.
I'm not trying to cold condition a lager or anything like that.
Because of all the cold temp in Melb last week it was sitting at around 12-14C in the shed.

 

[PostModern]

I haven't used much of the Cooper's yeast since kits 1-9 back in the dark ages, although I did try to make a brew entirely from ingredients from Franklins... I called it "Franklinstein Black and Tan". It was one can of No Frills Draught, one can of Coopers Old Dark ale, some brown and white sugar and the Cooper's yeast. Damn thing blew brown froth out of the airlock for 2 days. I had it wrapped in wet towels and the temp still sat at about 25 all day and night, despite an ambient temp in the low 20's by day. From that day on I decided to toss the yeast that came with any Coopers kit into the boil, that it's body may feed a decent brewing yeast. I guess my test recipe was a ~little~ unfair tho

Anyway, I think the Coopers yeast will go dormant at 14C, so if your beer isn't fully fermented out, it probably will take months to finish. The Coopers stuff seems to like high temps. It won't hurt it tho. If you're at your target FG, then the beer will improve a little with the cold conditioning. Ales benefit from it too, although apart from Koelsch beer, you don't really need 4C like a lager. I'd leave it there a couple of weeks and you should have a nice smooth drop. Just remember once you've bottled to store the bottles at the yeast's prefered fermentation temp to allow carbonation to happen.

 

[Jovial_Monk]

Hmmmmm you are racking a fermenting beer, I deduce

That is a bad habit, leave your beer in the primary for two weeks (excepting in hot weather when rack it more quickly or the yeast cake will turn to vegemite)

the first week it will ferment, the second week the yeast will drop and the yeast cake will clean up any faults like diacety etc. End result, a beer with not much yeast in the bottles, and not so green going into the bottles

After 2 weeks (ales) i then rack to a 20L cube that goes into one of my brewfridges and sits at .5C for 4 or more weeks. this drops even more yeast end the cold conditioning/lagering cleans up your beer further




JM

 

[jayse]

iam with the monk.
i always leave it till it has fermented right out and started to clear a little before i rack.even then i still make sure the temp is above 16c for another week.

i do this mainly for the yeast to do its work on reducing the diacetyl.
yuk artifical butter flavour is so gross.

anyway there is some great debate amoung some as to this techniquie.but the proof is in the finished product.
i'd don't think any breweries remove any of the yeast before its completely finished.exept maybe a little to culture from the top or from the bottom of a conical.

 

[Trough Lolly]

As I've mentioned on other threads, I have a Bavarian Lager in cold conditioning. I am using a spare Admiral fridge/overhead freezer unit in the garage. I dropped the temp controller down to minimum, which resulted in 4C. I normally use that fridge to chill my beers since it's a good old fridge that has run nice and cold for many years.

Thinking that 4C wasn't too cold for Lagering, I slapped in the secondary fermenter last Sunday.

Each evening I have a quick squizz and noticed that the fridge temp hovers at around 6-7C. I suspect that this is due to the volume of the fridge being displaced by a large body of fluid and so the normal / empty fridge temp is not so easy to attain. Either that or I mis-read the original temperature - I have a good door seal and the fridge is not used by the rest of the tribe!

If I can cold condition at around 6C, I don't think I need a fridge temp controller for my lagers and other cold conditioning ales. Or do I ?? :blink:

Cheers,

TL