Regulating Fermentation Temps

[monk]

Hi guys,

just wondering...for those of you who have a temperature regulated fridge or freezer in which you put your fermenters, or even those who in any way attempt to alter the temperature of your fermenting wort, what ambient temp do you shoot for for a given yeast?

For example, I've been setting my freezer at 19 or 20c, hoping that with the yeast activity the wort will actually be around 21c. I'm thinking, however, that this hasn't been the case. I think I've been fermenting at too high of temps. For a five gallon batch of fermenting ale, how many degrees of difference do you think there is between the ambient (fermentation chamber temp) and the actual wort temp?

That explanation seems really confusing to me...but it's been a long day and that's as clear as I'm able to be.

[Andy]

I think the differential is a couple of deg C but I haven't got a chiller cabinet/fridge so someone who has can give you a better answer.

But....get one of those stick on LCD temperature strips and stick in on the outside of your fermenter. Should give you a better indication of wort temperature rather than ambient.

[noby]

I'm not really sure of the temp difference, and it would change through the fermentation. If you want to be that accurate you'll have to stick a thermometer in and see.
My fridge holds about 18deg, and I'm happy enough with that. After that I drop it to about 12deg for conditioning and serving.

[mysterio]

I like to have ambient at around 14-15C for American ale yeast, this gives a pretty clean flavour profile. Takes about 5-6 days to ferment out at this temp. Most English yeasts are really fast and make too fruity a beer at room temp (~19C) IMO. With my Dry English Ale strain I noticed the temperature had jumped up to ~25C just from fermentation activity! I would probably drop it down a few degrees.

[jasonaustin]

Here's a graph of the temps in my SoFC during a fermentation this summer. Wort temperature was about 2-3degrees higher than the chiller temp for most of the fermentation, getting closer as fermentation ends, which you would expect.

[tribs]

Jason,

Do you have some kind of logger that produces that graph? Its very cool. You have a great temp curve for the wort. I presume you control the chiller using this temperature. Details please

[monk]

Thanks, guys. This is a really good change for me to try. I've had some funky brews lately and this is a factor I need to play with a bit. I think I'll try a test batch at abou 60F (16c) with the US 56 yeast. We'll see how she does. Thanks again!

Oh yeah, Mysterio, my english dry yeasts are turbo too! My Green King is very fruity right now. Not that bad, I don't think, but it could have used a much cooler ferment, I think. It took off like a rocket and probably all that activity had it up to the low 70sF ~23c). I'm suprised at how cool you ferment the US 56, but I'll give it a try and see what I've been missing.

monk

[RabMaxwell]

Hello Munk the way i do it and i think the most accurate is to have a controller with a probe you can sterilise.Place the probe in your fermenter and it will work from the real temperature of your beer. Cheers