Taking advantage of cold weather

[Stuart Wilson]

Two batches of lager....czech pilsner and vienna lager. Using mangrove Jack's bohemian lager yeast (M84). Temp in back kitchen seems perfect.....both fermenting like fury for first 3 - 4 days but calming g down now. Plan to shift to garage (totally unheated) after 10 days and just leave there for a out 4 weeks. Planning another couple of brews with this week.....double bock and something imaginative that I will make up as I go along. Did a batch like this for 1st time last year....was a great success!@

 

[smcc]

why are you fermenting lager/pilsner at 17degrees? be aware that the actual yeast activity generates heat and so you need to be quite cold in temp to keep it down

 

[Stuart Wilson]

That's just what temp it ends up in my bsvk itchen....no temp control so under normal circs it would be a lot higher! It's atually couple of degrees colder but yeast is keeping temp at 17......

 

[Stuart Wilson]

Now bubbling away nicely at 14 degrees....

 

[smcc]

with these yeasts you want to be in the lower range as you want to limit any undesirable flavour compounds it gives off during fermentation that would detract from the typical flavour profile of these types of beers. Temperature fluctuation is something you really want to minimise to improve the final product. A lot of starter homebrewers will just park beer somewhere and not pay too much attention but if you want to be making beer that will come close to the pros then you need to try as best as possible to keep things stable

 

[Stuart Wilson]

This is all very interesting.....but I can't control temperature at all so have to work with what the british climate gives me. This advice may be well intended....but it is pointless because I am stuck with whatever temperature the back kitchen ends up at. If we have a heatwave next week the fermentation temperature will go up.....there is nothing i can do about it.

 

[Covrich]

You can always do a fake lager at that temp really well too with Nottingham or US05.. then bottle lager it.. It comes out really well

 

[smcc]

get bigger bucket fill with cold water and ice from freezer then soak a towel put your fermenter in it and drape the towel over, ground water temp probably under 14 at this time of year anyway.

 

[GeorgieV]

No chance to go on a ski holiday this year but at least I did a proper cold crash in the shed at just below 0 C. The beer came out really clear before I kegged it.

 

[Clint]

My pale in the garage has definitely benefited from last night's minus whatever it was/ very cold/ brass monkeys/taters.