hi all. brewed last monday (ipa), pitched, everything went fine. checked on it 2 days later and it was obviously fermenting. however, i do not have a temp. controlled environment, and we hit a colder spell since i checked it last wednesday. so, the fermenting temp has dropped from ~68 to ~63, and has been there for roughly the last 5 days. i popped open the lid, and there is barely any sign of krausen or fermentation at all now. am i screwed? do i just give it an extra week? can i put my bucket on top of the heater vent for a little bit to kickstart it? thanks!
US05 too cold?
- Thread starter tyke
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63 is still within temp range for US-05. I'm sure some people would even recommend that temp. I think that perhaps you pitched old yeast but it's hard to do that with dry yeast. Maybe you didn't pitch enough? Did the yeast undergo a sudden temperature spike? Maybe they got shocked.
Pie_Man
Well-Known Member
At 63 ambient temperature, the beer is probably fermenting at 65-66 which is good. It may take a couple days longer to finish up veruss fermenting in the warmer end of it range. I'd probably leave it, however US-05 is pretty hardy and will give you clean flavors at 68-71 if you choose to warm it up some.
solbes
Well-Known Member
For most styles, I would rather ferment S-05 at 63 than 68. You likely had a quick ferment and its in cleanup mode. Let it sit another 1.5-2 weeks, cold crash or rack, then bottle.
Pie_Man
Well-Known Member
Yeah, according to White Labs's that yeast prefers a little bit warmer temperature (68-72), http://www.whitelabs.com/yeast/wlp060-american-ale-yeast-blend.
In general, different yeast strains means different temp requirements, there's no one temperature for all the different strains.
I like US-05 at 63-64 after about 3 or 4 days I will let it warm up to about 67 - 68
then cold crash and keg
all the best
S_M
oops see you did an edit
then cold crash and keg
all the best
S_M
oops see you did an edit
yeah, i understand that. it started off perfectly okay, but then crashed, and there's not really much i think i can do about it. i was just asking if the beer is ruined, or if it will be fine with lots of extra time.
Pie_Man
Well-Known Member
I would try to warm the temperature up and see what happens.
I don't have experience with WLP060 myself. With some strains, the beer will ferment, but slower, at temperatures colder than its optimum range. It's also possible the yeast went dormant. Warming the temperature up could wake most of them back up.
I don't have experience with WLP060 myself. With some strains, the beer will ferment, but slower, at temperatures colder than its optimum range. It's also possible the yeast went dormant. Warming the temperature up could wake most of them back up.
i turned the heat on and put the bucket over it until it was ~72. gave it a good shake. hopefully this wakes the little yeasties up. i planned on dry-hopping tomorrow, so i'll check it before i go hop shopping and see if it's doing anything.
As I read your first post, this has been fermenting a week, right? If that's the case, there's probably nothing at all wrong with your fermentation. It's just done producing CO2. It now needs to sit at least a few more days so the yeast consume/convert some of the fermentation by-products.
You need a gravity reading. I wouldn't warm, shake or do anything else to mess with it until you know what's really happening. The yeast won't rouse if there's nothing left for them to eat.
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Yeah, your beer is not supposed to keep krausening through the whole primary, it always calms down after a few days. Don't imagine it's stalled unless your gravity readings stay high. You need a hydrometer if you don't have one! You can do without a lot of things, but without that it's like cooking in the dark.
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