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Temperature During Fermentation

vytis74

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I brewed a batch of a simple blonde ale this past weekend.  The temperature here reached 80 on Monday (1 day after I brewed) and the temperature of the beer reached 70.  It's still fermenting I am just wondering if the higher temperature is going to cause any issues.  The temperature is now back down to 65.  However, this weekend we have forecast temps of 80 and we don't have air conditioning in our house.  Should I leave it in the cool place I have it now or I could put it in the crawl space where it stays cooler.
 
It depends on what yeast you are using, but 80 is very warm for most yeasts.  Mid 60s beer temperature is more appropriate for most yeasts. I would place it somewhere closer to that range. 

Keep in mind that dropping the temp too quickly can cause the yeast to go dormant. Too fast is more than 1 degree F per hour.
 
Read up on how to make a swamp cooler , just place in a plastic container and some frozen ice in soda bottles to keep the Fermenter Chilled  :D
 
If it had gotten up into the mid 70s or higher you could expect some banana like flavors, but if it only reached 70 I wouldn't worry about it.
 
Like Maine Homebrewer said, 70 should be fine. If your worried, wrap your fermenter in a wet towel. As the water evaporates it will cool down your fermenter. You'll probably only have to wet it a couple times. When fermentation slows, it won't be generating as much heat as active fermentation does. Let us know how it turns out.

MCB

 
I have a apricot blond ale fermenting too, using Wyeast 1056 which has a 62-70 suggested temp range.  When I pitched the beer was at 68 degrees and since the yeast activity would raise the temp, I put the carboy in a large plastic container and added 3-4 inches of cold water and some ice, then wrapped the carboy in a shirt. The shirt slowly gets wet as it pulls in the water, thus keeping the carboy cool.  Doing this, i was able to hold the temp for the first two days of active fermentation right at 66 degrees (right in the middle of the yeast's range).  By day 3 it dropped to 64 since activity was down a little...so out of the water it came and now holding at 65 in my basement.
 
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