Brewing at low temperatures

[ThreeSheets]

Hello all,

I recently moved house and now I have a Belgian Ale my FV in a 16-18oC area. I'm used to brewing at 21oC and I was wondering what are the effects of doing this:

Will my brew taste different fermenting at colder temperatures?
Will I have to wait significantly longer to siphon? (eg I would normally siphon after 9 days, should it now be 15?)
Is it better to brew ale specifically at higher temperatures (21oC)?

Cheers!

 

[Vossy1]

Hi TS, there are a lot of variable in your questions but here are some answers.
If using a ale yeast, say Windsor, you need to be able to ferment at higher temps to get the yeast to produce esters which give the beer fruit flavours. There are yeasts which will produce these esters at lower temps but you'd still be talking 18-20 deg c.
The lower temperature will slow certain yeasts down, I noted significant decrease with US05 at 17 deg c, and that will naturally extend the time taken to ferment to the chosen finish gravity.
Low temps may also prevent the yeast from reaching those gravities full stop.
For total flexibility you could consider a fermentation chamber, it doesn't have to be fancy, a cupboard lined with polystyrene with a house thermostat controlling a light bulb will do the job.

 

[Twotins]

My first entry as a newbie on this forum.
Unless you can afford to have the central heating on 24hrs (who can ?) then any brewing will be slower in winter. I had hit and miss results brewing until my wife got tired of the house stinking like a brewery and banished my brewing to the summerhouse at the bottom of the garden. Massive temperature fluctuations summer and winter. To get round this I bought a very large cool box from Costco and an aquarium heater. Fill the cool box with water and sit your home brew in it. Rock steady 21c. The lid fastens down so no condensation. To keep the water in the box sweet i add half a cup of bleach every couple of weeks. Result is much faster fermentations and better tasting beer - less time for other yeasts/ microbes to grow to sufficient numbers to impart tastes/odours.

 

[LeedsBrewer]

Yeah... what twotins said :thumb:

oh and in your intoductary post you said you were going to Abbey Home Brew. Don't forget to check out the Morley Homebrew shop. Bigger shop, one in which you can walk around and look at the products. friendly bloke that runs the place and gives good advice.

 

[ThreeSheets]

Thanks LeedsBrewer,

I did go to Morley Homebrew to get some more equipment recently, nice place!

I have the Belgian brew in my barrel now, it recently pushed the lever tap seal out of place; very bothersome and probably still fermenting.