Fermentation Temp

[tsimo33]

I brewed a cream ale on Saturday evening. Everything went great and I know it takes time to show signs of fermenting. So at 24 hours after pitching there was no bubbling in the airlock. I know that airlock activity is nothing to base fermentation on. My question is on temperature? Where I have it sitting right now is an ambient temp of around 63-65. The temp strip on my bucket says 61. Is that too cold and should I move to a warmer spot or will that work but just take longer? Like I said, it was a cream ale and nottingham ale was the yeast.

 

[cluckk]

What strain of yeast are you using? Many ale yeasts do fine at 61. You can try to raise its temperature to the mid to upper sixties to see if it helps, but without the strain of yeast we can't really tell you much.

Was the yeast there before? I didn't see it for some reason, but now it is there. Maybe I'm just going blind or batty.

 

[jflongo]

I have googled this yeast, and according to what I see, 61 should be fine. Just may take a little longer to take off.

Optimum temp: 57°-70° F.

 

[freisste]

Leave it alone and it will be fine. If it was mine, I would put it into a bucket of water to ensure temperature doesn't get any higher. But I like to ferment as cool as possible.

Nottingham is good down to 57, so 61 is great. It will likely warm itself up when fermentation really gets going. (Thus the reason to have a tub of water to put it in.)

 

[tsimo33]

Thanks for the responses. I will leave it be and let it do it's thing. I knew cooler was better and usually I have issues with keeping it cool. This is the first time that I have had a question about it being too cool.

 

[nymtber]

Did you rehydrate the nottingham like it says to? if so it will take off and warm the beer up a good 5° or so! Its a pretty active and QUICK yeast! I just made an Irish Red using nottingham, and yeast activity was pretty much complete after 3-4 days... I fermented wamer, though, around 65.

61 should be fine, just keep it somewhere dark and let it go! Might want a blow-off tube...nottingham got pretty crazy on me!

 

[billpaustin]

My Nottingham has the temp at 66, even though room temp fell to 60 overnight. It is cooking!

I like to watch the little bubbles pop, and realize the each one of those sparkles is really a, er, an, excretion of those millions of little buggers that are ...... nvm

 

[BigFloyd]

Thanks for the responses. I will leave it be and let it do it's thing. I knew cooler was better and usually I have issues with keeping it cool. This is the first time that I have had a question about it being too cool.

At 63-65*F ambient, you are nowhere close to being too cool for Nottingham. I like using it at 55*F for that first week before raising it into the low 60's and plan to do so in my next batch.

I'd suggest keeping it in the coolest place in your house since you do not want the fermenter temp (measured on the side of the bucket/carboy) to get above 68*F at all. When it's at its most active, the fermenter can be 7-8*F warmer than the surrounding air.

 

[BansheeRider]

Definately keep nottingham cool. My last batch got to 78 degrees and I freaked out. So far the beer tastes ok but it can get out of control before you know it.