Higher temps in secondary?

[Scuba_Steve81]

Is it acceptable to finish active fermentation in a temperature controlled environment, then when transfering to a secondary allow it to sit at room temp? My wife keeps the house warm, around 76. I just want to be able to free up my fermentor after a month or so.

 

[m1k3]

Yes... Totally fine, I bring the primary up to into the 70s at the end of the first week.

But most don't secondary unless adding fruit or dry hops (and maybe not even dry hops).

 

[Dr_Floyd]

I've had negligible effects when a batch had unusual temperature swings while in secondary. I suppose you can still get off flavors as the yeast is still active for a long time after Primary but there are much fewer yeast cells so the effects are much smaller I'd assume.

 

[Whatsgoodmiley]

I actually listened to beersmith's podcast #128 recently. John Palmer discusses that it's okay to increase temperature during the course of fermentation and can even be good to do so, as it allows the yeast to work on eating up the byproducts produced during their reproductive phases. You want to avoid starting fermentation with a high temperature, then cooling fermentation, as those increased amount of byproducts experienced due to higher temperatures don't get metabolized as quickly or efficiently once the temperature is lower.

It's worth listening to sometime.