Temp Range

[shark]

Hi Everyone,

I am new here. Doing some research on home brew kits and will be buying one asap.

Looking at somewhere to put the kit in my garage. I have been taking temp readings and have found that in the garage the temp during the day is 18 degrees and during the night it is around 13 degrees.

I was wondering if this is going to be a problem with kit brewing ale? Will the temp of the wort change much with these variations in atmosphere temp?

I was also thinking of putting the kit inside an esky (standing on its side) which should regulate the temp a bit more. Will it be a problem if the wort reaches temps of 13 degrees?

Should I be looking at something to heat the fermentor during the night?

Thanks in advance for all your help and I love the site already.

Ben

 

[bum]

Seems to me that if you put your fermenter in an esky you won't need to worry about the wort getting down to 13 at night. The esky will keep the cold out and the heat from the fermenter in. The fermentation process generates heat - in fact, you may have to think about adding some bottles of frozen water to keep it cool enough. Someone who has done this might have some better advice though (knowing this place there's a good chance six blokes have already done it while I typed this). Good luck with it!

 

[Sir Cursealot]

Hey there ben, welcome.

A mate of mine swears by a heat mat under the fermenter in winter. I havent tried on myself, but might be worth checking out. $65 from Garin and Grape

 

[ah_glenno]

perfect time to brew an ale, i just finished a brew using an ale yeast, and i kept it in my garage and the most it got up to was 20C and if the temperature got a bit low overnight i would wrap it in a blanket to keep in the heat that it was generating. My understanding is that, provided you have good sanitation, there is not a problem with the temperature dropping low for a brew for a limited period of time. The only problem is that the yeast can stall, but will restart when the temp gets back up. But wrapping the fermenter overnight should do the trick

 

[Bribie G]

As long as it doesn't get much colder, one thing you can do is to chuck the kit yeast (if you are doing kits) and use a yeast such as Nottingham or even the humble Morgans Lager yeast that can tolerate a wide range of temperatures and will ferment down to 13 or 14. However the beer itself is unlikely to actually reach those temps, especially at night if you insulated it with an old doonah or a beach towel.

If you intend to get into brewing as an obsession, like most of us on the forum, then a great bit of equipment is a dead fridge. Not only is it usually free but if you strip out all the crap like the motor, shelves, egg holders etc it makes a good brewing 'cabinet' for the winter to even out the temperature, and in the summer you can use frozen soft drink bottles to brew at under 20 right through the summer.

Currently in SEQ I have a fermenter sitting in my dead fridge and it's at an almost constant 18 degrees without ice bottles though it's been getting down to 8 at nights with the current cold 'blast'. Perfect.

 

[The Big Burper]

Check out this immersion heater, I have used one for years, no problems.

You can dial up the required temp and forget about it.




http://www.burker.com.au/testimonials.php



cheers
Dave

 

[Eyelusion]

Hey ben,

I too have a mate that swears by a heat mat under the fermenter in winter.
He has a timer on it that clicks it on during the night and off during the day.
By doing this he maintains a constant temp of around 18-20 degrees.

Might be worth a try.

 

[manticle]

Hi Everyone,

I am new here. Doing some research on home brew kits and will be buying one asap.

Looking at somewhere to put the kit in my garage. I have been taking temp readings and have found that in the garage the temp during the day is 18 degrees and during the night it is around 13 degrees.

I was wondering if this is going to be a problem with kit brewing ale? Will the temp of the wort change much with these variations in atmosphere temp?

I was also thinking of putting the kit inside an esky (standing on its side) which should regulate the temp a bit more. Will it be a problem if the wort reaches temps of 13 degrees?

Should I be looking at something to heat the fermentor during the night?

Thanks in advance for all your help and I love the site already.

Ben

As others have suggested the esky should help. I'd recommend buying a thermometer (get one that goes to 100 deg C) and monitoring the temp inside the esky (although whatever you're using to measure ambient temp in the gargae may be ok). If need be you can bump the temp up by adding some warm or hot water. 18 -20 deg C is supposedly optimum for ales but as Bribie suggested some yeasts are more forgiving. The higher temperatures are worse as they can contribute to unwanted ester flavours being thrown out - cooler temps will mainly result in cleaner tasting beer (not always desirable depending on style) a slower ferment (can be good unless you're impatient in which case become patient) and the possibility of a stalleed ferment (usually only a worry if you start playing around with high gravity beers.

Along with the basic kit and thermometer make sure you get a hydrometer so you can tell when fermentation is finished.

You can get heat pads and heat belts for your fermenter but they need a bit of monitoring. See how you go with the esky and temp monitoring.

 

[Neill]

i've been having similar issues with US-05, as soon as it dropped below 18 it just shut down for me. for the last 3 brews i've switched to nottingham and have been much happier with its efforts. i've had one get down to 15 and it was still chugging away.

 

[Bribie G]

+1 with the US-05, if fermented warmer, say 21 degrees it goes off like a rocket and finishes quickly, but at lower temperatures, after the initial krausen, it seems to just sit there with a thin layer of bubbles on the top for a couple of weeks until it finally waves the white flag and finishes off.

 

[shark]

Thanks everyone for your help.

Does the temp of wort hover much above the ambient temp?

I think I will look for an old non-working fridge or just stick to the esky on its side. That way I can open it during the day and close it at night during the cooler days.

Summer will be alot harder.

Thanks again, and now I am pumped to pickup my kit and start brewing!

Ben

 

[manticle]

Thanks everyone for your help.

Does the temp of wort hover much above the ambient temp?

My understanding is that it will be a few degrees hotter inside the fermenter during primary ferment. A stick on thermometer should give you an indication (alternatively you can measure your hydrometer samples with both hydrometer and thermometer).