Greg Hughes's book

[Pete83]

More help please..

I've brewed my first all grain Patersbier from Greg Hughes's book and I've noticed that all his recipes call for a conditioning period with a much cooler temp than fermentation.

My recipe calls for a week at 22c then 3 weeks at 12c.

It's exactly a week since I've brewed and it's bubbling away nicely in the FF at 22c as per instructions. Looks a strong fermentation as I've had to change the blow off tube and merky sanitiser solution, happy days.

After receiving advice on here I'm going for 2 weeks in the FF at 22c followed by a further week cold crash at 1-2c as there was a lot of hop matter.

This is where I'm stuck, in my head I bottle and keep at the fermentation temp for a while to aid carbonation before storing in a cool dark place don't i?

What part does 12c come in?

 

[JonBrew]

Yup, bottle and store warm until the yeast have consumed all the priming sugar and produced the carbonation.

The 12 degrees C conditioning temp for 3 weeks is what the author prescribes as the ideal storage temp and time for the beer before you start to drink it. 12 degrees is known as cellar temperature and is considered the optimum temperature for storing beer if you want to slow the staling of the beer but also let the yeast finish up conditioning the beer by cleaning up by products. Over a longer period of time, if aging a stronger beer such as a barleywine, cellar temp is considered best as it allows the beer to 'mature'.

Basically, once you get down to fridge temps, i.e. 0-3 degrees, the yeast will drop out and stop doing anything (unless it's a lager yeast). The maturation process is also slowed down significantly and arguably almost stopped.

As I mentioned above, 12 degrees is only recommended as the 'ideal' conditioning temp. If you don't have a fridge you can dedicate to storing the beer at 12 degrees, room temp will be fine.

 

[Pete83]

Cheers Jonbrew

 

[MyQul]

What jonbrew say. I have no where to store my beer at 12C so just keep it at room temp. Still keep pretty long though, just not as long as cellar temps

 

[Pete83]

Would you recommend around a week back at 22c before switching FF down to 12c? I've read bottle carbonation takes longer after a cold crash?

 

[JonBrew]

Would you recommend around a week back at 22c before switching FF down to 12c? I've read bottle carbonation takes longer after a cold crash?

You're right, after cold crashing bottle carbonating might take a bit longer. I'd give them 2 to 3 weeks at 22 degrees then open one and taste it. If it seems fully carbonated, go ahead and store the rest at 12 degrees. If not, give them longer.

 

[Pete83]

Cheers Jonbrew. It's not quite the 'quickbrew' I was going for but if it's worth doing then I'll try to do it right. :cheers7:

 

[Zephyr259]

His timings all seem pretty weird to me as they all assume 1 week fermenting then the conditioning time but that's not really the best practice or how any of us actually be them.

 

[Pete83]

It's a great book for the new brewers like myself as it keeps everything simple and gave me confidence to try all grain but not much detail regarding secondary options and clearing.

 

[JonBrew]

I have the Greg Hughes book and I agree it's a good introduction book for beginners as well as having lots of great recipes. If you want something more in depth get How to Brew by John Palmer. There's a free copy of the first edition online but the new addition is well worth the money and contains a lot of revisions/new information.

 

[Pete83]

I'll check that out, cheers.