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Temperature thoughts

Captain Ed

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Wisconsin mid way up on the east side by some wate
Real new brewer but wanting to learn. Ok so I am done brewing my Curmudgeon Old Ale clone in my Anvil foundry. I used Wyeast 1056 which I made in a starter of DME at about 1.038. Pitched and less than one day Im bubbling real good.
My question is on fermentation temperature. I am fermenting in an Anvil 7.5 stainless bucket and I have it in a room where temps stay about 66 to 68 degrees. The recipe says to ferment at 70f. Wyeast 1056 range is 60 to 72.

How critical is it to be at exactly 70 AND (I think I know the answer but help please) what is the better way to err  higher than70 or lower.

I can add heat to the room to temper it up but is there a distinct advantage to that. I have to basically do nothing to keep it at 67-68.

Thanks.
 
If the recipe says to ferment at 70 and you are within a degree or two of that, you are probably fine. If you are 4-5 degrees higher or lower you will get a slightly different flavor profile.

Fermentation involves chemical reactions that generate heat, so your beer will be warmer than the ambient room temperature, except at the very edges of your bucket. The temperature at the center of your bucket could be up to 7-10 degrees higher than ambient, depending on how vigorous the fermentation is. You have no way of knowing without sticking in a thermometer and measuring. If you really want your fermentation temperature to be spot on, you should consider a cooling system. Anvil sells one for your bucket. Unfortunately it costs as much as the bucket itself and doesn't include everything (there is no source of cold -- you have to provide that yourself).

--GF
 
To emphasize further what GF said, your room temperature is NOT the temperature inside your fermenting vessel.  You are not controlling fermentation temperature very much or very well with ambient temperatures.  Once active fermentation slows down, then your ambient temperature will become important, as the yeast will no longer be consuming sugars at a rate to generate enough heat the affect the volume of liquid they are in.

To get back to your original question about how important fermentation temperature will be for your beer, the answer is that it depends upon the strain you use.  WY1056 is pretty much a neutral yeast and will be fairly consistent across the range given by Wyeast.  At fermentation temperatures (active fermentation) of above 72F, there is a tendency, at least in my experience, for that strain to throw some peachy or other stone fruit type flavors.  This is more noticeable in the dry version of this strain, US-05.

Some other yeasts will give a drastic difference in flavor profile with just a little change in fermenting temperature.  One of my favorite American yeasts, WY1272 is very clean and neutral below 66-68F, but bring it up to 70F+ and I get some nice fruity esters in the beer.  Many English yeast strains also follow this trend.










 
Thanks guys I am slowly picking up all kinds of great info and this helps greatly. The beer was brewed on Weds 1-22, put off bubbles within hours of pitching and then went good thru Saturday. Now it still produces bubbles and I know that fermentation still occurs so no worries. MY room temp is about 67-68 so overall I think I will be good. I appreciate you sharing your knowledge with me. Cheers.
 
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