Fermentation in California

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Mrh1282

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Ok I’m brand new to this. I bought a beer kit last week I’ve watch many YouTube videos and been doing a lot of reading. I understand beer making can be addictive and you want to buy more or better equipment.

I would like to start of with beer kits and want to start Saturday. But I’m afraid about fermentation temp. I live in California and we are going though a heat wave and house is still 80 degrees everyday. Anyone can give advice on what to do. I really don’t have the money to go buy a freezer right now but I would love to in the future. I understand why you do now.
Thank you
 
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It’s a bit on the sketchy side, but it works. It’s a Rubbermaid container, four half gallonish juice bottles with frozen water, and an old towel over the top.

I have a seedling mat wrapped around and hooked to an inkbird to keep it at my desired temp. It holds reasonably well in my basement. I used it all through the this humid MN summer. Temps in the basement ran low 80/high 70s, while the inkbird read low to mid 60s. Sometimes have to check and replace the bottles 3-4 times daily during peak temperatures. But if you’re like me, you’ll be nosing around it anyway, changing ice bottles just gives a good excuse
 
Ok I’m brand new to this. I bought a beer kit last week I’ve watch many YouTube videos and been doing a lot of reading. I understand beer making can be addictive and you want to buy more or better equipment.

I would like to start of with beer kits and want to start Saturday. But I’m afraid about fermentation temp. I live in California and we are going though a heat wave and house is still 80 degrees everyday. Anyone can give advice on what to do. I really don’t have the money to go buy a freezer right now but I would love to in the future. I understand why you do now.
Thank you
So Ca is starting to cool off -the next four days are in the 70's .
 
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It’s a bit on the sketchy side, but it works. It’s a Rubbermaid container, four half gallonish juice bottles with frozen water, and an old towel over the top.

I have a seedling mat wrapped around and hooked to an inkbird to keep it at my desired temp. It holds reasonably well in my basement. I used it all through the this humid MN summer. Temps in the basement ran low 80/high 70s, while the inkbird read low to mid 60s. Sometimes have to check and replace the bottles 3-4 times daily during peak temperatures. But if you’re like me, you’ll be nosing around it anyway, changing ice bottles just gives a good excuse

awesome. I think I’ll do that. I have a trailer next to my house that I’m going to check them temp in I might leave it in there.
 
You could also just replace the yeast from the kit with a kveik yeast like voss kveik or hothead or hornindal. It's liquid yeast but there is no need to do a starter with kveik, in fact it would be best to pitch only one third of the kveik pack into 5 gallon batches, saving the rest for later batches.
The yeast bay sells Voss kveik in a vial that can easily be resealed, I would buy this one (don't listen to what's written on the pack regarding pitch rate, 1/3 of the vial is plenty of yeast for kveik in a 5 gallon batch).

Kveik loves high temperatures, it ferments wonderfully at body temperature (37c), but also does is job at lower temperatures.
 
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I was going to mention Kveik as well but Miraculix was faster. It is actually a great yeast for beginners, because less temperature control is needed for a finished product without off flavors. If you pitch the whole pack you will get a more neutral fermentation profile, that may work better depending on your recipe. Although pitching lower quantities, as Miraculix mentions, is the more traditional way and will deliver excellent results as well.
 
I’m in nor cal. yeah today was 102. It says it post to drop to mid 80’s. But we will see.
I have friends in Lompoc and they said it was unseasonably hot the last few days but cooled down into the '60s at night. the 10 day is looking good for fermentation
 
I'm in central California. We just had the last kick in the nuts by the summer time . Now its 80-70's on the horizon thankfully. A tub with cool water works great . Just add ice bottles if needed . A cool wet towel and a fan works well as well. With our temps cooling down you will be fine.
 
You can use a swamp cooler to bring temps down, and supplement it with frozen water bottles. Keeping ferm temps down is huge.

Here's a pic of one I did. You put the fermenter in a turkey pan or similar, fill the pan with water, drape a t-shirt over the fermenter and let it hang in the water. The water wicks up and as it evaporates, helps cool the fermenter.

swampcooler.jpg
 
Thanks for everyone input. So I made my first brew kit on sat and I have it in the closet in a Rubbermaid container with about 4-6 inches of water and every morning I’m switching out frozen water bottles. My temp has been holding around 68-70.

so after the first 12 hours my airlock was bubbling like crazy and today 4 days later it stopped. I’ve been reading that can be normal. I’m not going to stress over it. I’m going to let it ride out for the two weeks. And we shall see what happens.
 
Thanks for everyone input. So I made my first brew kit on sat and I have it in the closet in a Rubbermaid container with about 4-6 inches of water and every morning I’m switching out frozen water bottles. My temp has been holding around 68-70.

so after the first 12 hours my airlock was bubbling like crazy and today 4 days later it stopped. I’ve been reading that can be normal. I’m not going to stress over it. I’m going to let it ride out for the two weeks. And we shall see what happens.
It's most likely done fermenting but I would give it a swirl and let the temp come up to 70-75 for a couple of days.
 
It's most likely done fermenting but I would give it a swirl and let the temp come up to 70-75 for a couple of days.

It’s ok to swirl it around ? Won’t that mess up the krausen and the yeast on The bottom. (Just asking because I’m new not judging).

I’ll remove the frozen water bottles.
 
It’s ok to swirl it around ? Won’t that mess up the krausen and the yeast on The bottom. (Just asking because I’m new not judging).

I’ll remove the frozen water bottles.
Don't open it. Adding oxygen at this point really hurts the beer. Wait it out and remove the water to let the temperature rise.
 
It’s ok to swirl it around ? Won’t that mess up the krausen and the yeast on The bottom. (Just asking because I’m new not judging).

I’ll remove the frozen water bottles.

If you swirl the fermenter that stuff will settle again. At this point it's unlikely you have much if any krausen on top of the beer. At the peak of fermentation, you can have 1-4" of krausen on top of the beer. It's held there by the bubbles of CO2 the yeast are producing. When fermentation slows, the krausen falls, as there no longer is enough CO2 to keep the "head" up to those levels. Sort of like head on a beer; when the beer goes flat, no head.

But if you still have a layer of krausen on the top of the beer, it's probably not done. What you may have on top of the beer are yeast rafts which will sink down over a few days. It doesn't seem likely you still have fermentation ongoing as your airlock has ceased bubbling. The only thing would be if there's a leak through which CO2 is escaping, instead of the airlock. Unlikely given the airlock has worked fine to this point.

What yeast rafts look like: https://www.google.com/search?tbm=i...0KHbzGAHMQ4dUDCAY&uact=5#imgrc=a2Ry4WCznQflMM:

I personally would not swirl it, but there's nothing wrong with doing that. You had a temp which would promote good yeast activity, but not too high. Bubbling has stopped.

Agree with @Bigdaddyale that you can let the temp rise a few degrees; this will help the yeast clean up after itself (yeah, they really do), but if you're already at 70 degrees, that won't do all that much more than just letting it sit. Most ales I ferment at about 64 degrees, then I let it rise to 71 degrees at the end. You're already there.

You didn't say what kind of fermenter you're using. If it's clear you can see what the krausen is doing (why I like clear fermenters over white plastic buckets). If it's a bucket you're using--and that's fine if you are--maybe you can see a little bit through the side with a flashlight. There will be krausen stuck to the side of the bucket, but the surface of the beer will be largely clear of krausen, just some minor flotsam and jetsam still on the surface.

Anyway, congrats--what you've seen is perfectly normal. A 4-day fermentation is typical. Depending on the temp of the wort, and the strain of yeast, your fermentation can be over in as short as 2 days (I just had one do that--lager yeast at ale ferm temps), and as long as...well, days and days, if you have a slow lager yeast fermenting at cool temps (48 degrees, say). Chemical and biological processes proceed faster at higher temps.

And BTW, your patience is exemplary. Of all the things we need to learn as brewers, including bizarre language including terms such as strike water, tun, sparge, hydrometer, krausen, yeast rafts, and many many more, the single hardest thing for new brewers to learn is....patience. :)
 
I wonder how you guys want to swirl it, without opening it? I mean, technically nothing wrong with rousing the yeast, but introducing oxygen by opening a finished fermenter is kind of the worst thing which one could do at this stage.

If the yeast would still be active, completely different storry, but this one seems to be done, so I really would not open it.
 
I wonder how you guys want to swirl it, without opening it? I mean, technically nothing wrong with rousing the yeast, but introducing oxygen by opening a finished fermenter is kind of the worst thing which one could do at this stage.

If the yeast would still be active, completely different storry, but this one seems to be done, so I really would not open it.

Swirling in this context means rocking the fermenter in a circular motion to rouse the yeast from the layer at the bottom of the fermenter. Sort of like how a shaker table mixes a flask of some biological mix. You wouldn't open the fermenter to do this.
 
I wonder how you guys want to swirl it, without opening it? I mean, technically nothing wrong with rousing the yeast, but introducing oxygen by opening a finished fermenter is kind of the worst thing which one could do at this stage.

If the yeast would still be active, completely different storry, but this one seems to be done, so I really would not open it.

No need to swirl . I've never had to swirl . The only time I would even think about it is if I had a stuck fermentation. Patience is a virtue , let the temp come up a bit and let it do its thing.
 
If you swirl the fermenter that stuff will settle again. At this point it's unlikely you have much if any krausen on top of the beer. At the peak of fermentation, you can have 1-4" of krausen on top of the beer. It's held there by the bubbles of CO2 the yeast are producing. When fermentation slows, the krausen falls, as there no longer is enough CO2 to keep the "head" up to those levels. Sort of like head on a beer; when the beer goes flat, no head.

But if you still have a layer of krausen on the top of the beer, it's probably not done. What you may have on top of the beer are yeast rafts which will sink down over a few days. It doesn't seem likely you still have fermentation ongoing as your airlock has ceased bubbling. The only thing would be if there's a leak through which CO2 is escaping, instead of the airlock. Unlikely given the airlock has worked fine to this point.

What yeast rafts look like: https://www.google.com/search?tbm=i...0KHbzGAHMQ4dUDCAY&uact=5#imgrc=a2Ry4WCznQflMM:

I personally would not swirl it, but there's nothing wrong with doing that. You had a temp which would promote good yeast activity, but not too high. Bubbling has stopped.

Agree with @Bigdaddyale that you can let the temp rise a few degrees; this will help the yeast clean up after itself (yeah, they really do), but if you're already at 70 degrees, that won't do all that much more than just letting it sit. Most ales I ferment at about 64 degrees, then I let it rise to 71 degrees at the end. You're already there.

You didn't say what kind of fermenter you're using. If it's clear you can see what the krausen is doing (why I like clear fermenters over white plastic buckets). If it's a bucket you're using--and that's fine if you are--maybe you can see a little bit through the side with a flashlight. There will be krausen stuck to the side of the bucket, but the surface of the beer will be largely clear of krausen, just some minor flotsam and jetsam still on the surface.

Anyway, congrats--what you've seen is perfectly normal. A 4-day fermentation is typical. Depending on the temp of the wort, and the strain of yeast, your fermentation can be over in as short as 2 days (I just had one do that--lager yeast at ale ferm temps), and as long as...well, days and days, if you have a slow lager yeast fermenting at cool temps (48 degrees, say). Chemical and biological processes proceed faster at higher temps.

And BTW, your patience is exemplary. Of all the things we need to learn as brewers, including bizarre language including terms such as strike water, tun, sparge, hydrometer, krausen, yeast rafts, and many many more, the single hardest thing for new brewers to learn is....patience. :)

Thank you for your feedback. Great Information. I’m using a glass carboy. Today I peaked I. There and the temp is at 73 and I have a layer of what I’m think is krausen. I took a pic.

IMG_5534.JPG


I completely understand that home brewing takes a lot of patience. I tried home brewery 9 years ago and I didn’t want to wait when I can just go to the store and grab something. Now I’m older and with couple of kids and tired of drinking the same stuff. Figured I needed another hobby.

Once again thank you to everyone for your input. I don’t want to be the new guy who ask the same questions over and over again.
 
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