fermentation heat rises

[Onthebrew]

Afternoon All



I generally attach the ink bird thermo to the side of the FV and this time I stepped up the insulation a notch with more bubble wrap and attached by velcro.

A day and a half into fermentation and the temperature is more than 3 degrees above ambient temperature which was a big surprise ( 22.3c v 19c). Normally the difference is about 1 degree. The yeast in wyeast ringwood ale and i was hoping for a target temp of 20C.

So it the change of measurement a reflection of a more accurate reading this time and therefore a 3 degree difference is quite common? or is it maybe a characteristic of this yeast? i checked the ink bird with a chefs thermometer and its close enough so doesn't look like it needs calibration.

Ambient temp never gets above 19C, so i haven't used a brew fridge yet, just relied on heat mats to raise temps. But taking into account the heat created by the fermentation itself it looks like Ive got that wrong and i need to set up a cooling element too to compensate.

also now that it been above 22 for a couple of days, should i abandon my 20C target and maybe aim for 21C when it starts to call back down to keep it more steady.

[McMullan]

Ringwood kicks out a lot of heat. It's a beast. All fermentations release heat. Forget about ambient temps. During active primary fermentation the ambient temp ideally needs to be 3, 4 or 5 degrees below the wort temp you are aiming for. Start using a brew fridge if you have one.

[TheSumOfAllBeers]

Your insulation will make the problem worse until you get some kind of active cooling

[Onthebrew]

Cheers. Picked up a fridge on gum tree this evening.

[Fil]

I cant recall the source atm, but ive read that a highly active yeast population can produce enough heat to rise the brew temp upto 5c above ambient. And the activity will also generate significant co2 volumes which will contribute to thoroughly mixing and evening out the brew temperature as it rises.

Now with a brewfridge you should be able to control the temp much easily

the activity producing the rising co2 that mixes the brew will also aid the transfer of the cold or heat input from the brewfridge too, just ensure you include a fan to 'push' the fridge temp onto your brew-vessel

[Onthebrew]

A fan?

[Fil]

in a brewfridge or even in any fridge, the air captured inside is the medium of heat exchange, its what takes the cold and heat of thier respective radiators and applies it to the contents be it cheese or a brew bucket. most commercial fridges and top end domestic models include fans to blow over the cold radiator.

you can rely on convection to move the air about but its a lot less efficient than a diddy fan, a basic pc case fan powered by a redundant phone charger is more than adiquate and is simple to wire up to run 24/7