A few questions on secondary temps?

[Pelican521]

Hi all, I have a IPA that I just racked to my secondary and was wondering what temps I should have it at?

I had my fridge controlled with an STC1000 and kept the temps at 64 degrees for the primary fermentation for 13 days.

Now that it's in the secondary, I plan on keeping it there for about a week and then dry hop for 5 days and finally cold crash at 32 degrees for a day.

Is 64 degrees a good temp now and for dry hopping, or should I raise the temps a bit?

 

[twistr25]

You can raise it a bit. It'll kick up the energy of the yeast a little bit to help them finish off the byproducts.

 

[Pelican521]

What temp should I set it to at this point now that it's in the secondary? Should I step it up gradually?

Thx.

 

[twistr25]

You can let it rise to 70 or so if you want. The most important temp phase is over. You don't want it to jump quickly or anything to shock the yeast, but letting it raise to 70 should be just fine.

 

[RM-MN]

Controlling off flavors is the reason to start your fermentation of the beer cool as the yeast raise the temperature of the beer and give off esters and fusel alcohol that are undesirable in your beer. These flavors are produced during the lag phase and the fast ferment phase. With the temperature control you have I would expect these phases to take 3 to 5 days. After that you can (and I believe should) let the temperature rise to room temp as this warmer temp helps the yeast complete the breakdown of the intermediate products of fermentation such as acetaldehyde. You would dry hop when the fermentation is complete and the beer can remain at room temp for that time too.

This controlling of the fermentation temperatures for a shorter time also helps in another area. Your fermentation chamber will be empty sooner and you can start another beer in there.

 

[Pelican521]

Cool, thanks guys. I went ahead and brought my temp up to 67 degrees. I'll keep it there for a few days and then bring it up a little more before I dry hop.

I'm afraid to take it out of my fridge because we had a little heat wave the other week and it was up to about 90 degrees in the house.

That's too hot,right?

 

[cheezydemon3]

For secondary.......it would probably be fine, but I wouldn't risk temps in the 90's.

I would dial the chest to 70 and forget it for a week though. to "shock" yeast with heat, you would have to dump that beer into a pot and try to get it to 180 ASAP.....Even then they would probably survive and recover.