[hazefodaze29]

Happy HBW everyone,

Third all grain batch is currently fermenting away. I am wanting and ready to brew consistently every week. Issue is, I only have room for one fermentor bucket in my 5cu.ft freezer. Lets say I brew one batch (an ale under 7%/ using a general ale yeast with starter) every saturday. How important is controlling the young beers fermentation temps between days 7 thru 10 or 14? The plan would be to move the bucket out of the freezer and place in a room away from light so the new batch can sit in a controlled temp setting from days 1 thru 7. Room temp is usually around during 65 this time of year and drops to 60 at night. Would this dramatically change the flavor profile during this stage of fermentation? Would love to hear any and all opinions. In the mean time... I will continue to search up bigger chest freezers on the cheap on craigslist..

[denny]

After about day 4-5 there is no reason not to let the temp rise  It not only doesn't hurt, but many of us do it purposely.

[hazefodaze29]

Definitely.But  in my case the temp will actually drop from days 7-14. With the temp controller for the freezer, it ferments away between 66 and 68. Once I would remove it from the freezer and leave it in a room, my house is actually colder than that. 65 or so during the day, drops to around 60 for 4 or 5 hours at night. I won't have this problem during later spring/early summer as my house temp will remain higher throughout the day/night. Thanks for the response Denny!

[denny]

Definitely.But  in my case the temp will actually drop from days 7-14. With the temp controller for the freezer, it ferments away between 66 and 68. Once I would remove it from the freezer and leave it in a room, my house is actually colder than that. 65 or so during the day, drops to around 60 for 4 or 5 hours at night. I won't have this problem during later spring/early summer as my house temp will remain higher throughout the day/night. Thanks for the response Denny!

Thanks for the clarification!  Still, no big deal.

[brewinhard]

Definitely.But  in my case the temp will actually drop from days 7-14. With the temp controller for the freezer, it ferments away between 66 and 68. Once I would remove it from the freezer and leave it in a room, my house is actually colder than that. 65 or so during the day, drops to around 60 for 4 or 5 hours at night. I won't have this problem during later spring/early summer as my house temp will remain higher throughout the day/night. Thanks for the response Denny!

Agreed, no big deal. If you are really worried about it, you can wrap up your fermenter before evening with a big blanket to help keep the temp swings from occurring more quickly than normal, but as stated above, at that point it is not a big deal at all.

[hazefodaze29]

Well in that case... I will brew my Quasi single hop galaxy IPA Saturday and take the blonde ale out of the ferm chamber. Thanks again!!

[Joe Sr.]

I think it really depends on the yeast and the gravity of the beer.  3 degrees is not much, but with something like 1968 or 3724 you could get a stall or have the yeast drop out early.  A normal gravity beer should be done in the first seven days, but a high gravity beer could take a bit longer.

[kramerog]

If you pitched enough healthy yeast, you are probably done after 7 days with <7% beers.  Give it a taste.  If you got a diacetyl bomb then leave it in the ferment chamber.

You could get yourself an aquarium heater and a large tote to create a temperature controlled water batch.  Check the minimum temperature of the aquarium heater as many heaters are not useful at maintaining temperatures below 70 F.  In the winter, water baths work well for me.

[reverseapachemaster]

Once primary fermentation is complete the beer can be left to ambient temperatures unless the ambient conditions are so cool the yeast won't do proper cleanup or so warm that it is adverse to the beer. Primary fermentation is not necessarily complete after four or five days although for most yeast strains and most beers that will be the case.

[hazefodaze29]

I appreciate the response. I am looking at a predominately galaxy hopped ipa. Hopefully should clock around 6.5%. What I have that in the chamber that is coming out to colder than normal room temps is a blonde ale. So it sounds like the yeast won't bothered too much by spending a few days between 60-65 degrees before heading to the keg. 

[denny]

Once primary fermentation is complete the beer can be left to ambient temperatures unless the ambient conditions are so cool the yeast won't do proper cleanup or so warm that it is adverse to the beer. Primary fermentation is not necessarily complete after four or five days although for most yeast strains and most beers that will be the case.

FWIW, I've recently learned that the yeast cleans up during fermentation, not after. 

[Steve Ruch]

Once primary fermentation is complete the beer can be left to ambient temperatures unless the ambient conditions are so cool the yeast won't do proper cleanup or so warm that it is adverse to the beer. Primary fermentation is not necessarily complete after four or five days although for most yeast strains and most beers that will be the case.

FWIW, I've recently learned that the yeast cleans up during fermentation, not after.

Could you elaborate a bit?

[denny]

Could you elaborate a bit?

In researching an article on fast lager fermentation for BYO, I talked to John Palmer about some things.  One thing that came out of it was this info from him...

Yeast have 3 phases in their life cycle: Adaptation, High Growth, and Stationary. (See Yeast by CW and Jamil) They do not have a maturation phase where they clean up byproducts. Adaptation phase is where they take in oxygen and build sterols and other lipids, assess the sugar composition and build enzymes, etc. Once those activities are done, they start the High Growth Phase, eating and reproducing. The number of cell divisions is limited by their lipid reserves they made during Adaptation. These reserves are shared with each daughter cell. When those lipid reserves are exhausted, the cell stops reproducing. In addition, when those reserves are exhausted, the cell is old and cannot eat or excrete waste efficiently across it’s cell membrane. A yeast cell typically can reproduce about 4 times during a typical fermentation, after that it is old and tired and tends to enter Stationary phase where it shuts down most of its metabolism and flocculates, waiting for the next batch of aerated wort. Stationary phase is essentially an inactivity phase, resting on the bottom.

Like I said, no conditioning phase as far as the yeast are concerned. Byproducts can be consumed at any point during the high growth phase, but they are a lower energy source than sugar, so guess what? Byproducts are not a biological priority. The brewer therefore needs to plan his pitching rate and fermentation conditions such that the yeast run out of fermentable wort sugar before their lipid reserves are exhausted and they go into stationary phase. Now you have a majority of vigorous yeast that have only undergone 2 reproductions (for example), the sugar is gone, and they are still hungry, so they turn to acetaldehyde and diacetyl as alternate energy sources and maturate the beer. You can help this by doing a diacetyl rest by raising the temperature a few degrees after the first half of fermentation, to keep the yeast active and eating. Where in the fermentation? after the first half, 2/3 to 3/4, when most of the attenuation has occured and raising the temperature is not going to cause rampant growth and the off-flavors associated with it.

[Steve Ruch]

Could you elaborate a bit?

In researching an article on fast lager fermentation for BYO, I talked to John Palmer about some things.  One thing that came out of it was this info from him...

Yeast have 3 phases in their life cycle: Adaptation, High Growth, and Stationary. (See Yeast by CW and Jamil) They do not have a maturation phase where they clean up byproducts. Adaptation phase is where they take in oxygen and build sterols and other lipids, assess the sugar composition and build enzymes, etc. Once those activities are done, they start the High Growth Phase, eating and reproducing. The number of cell divisions is limited by their lipid reserves they made during Adaptation. These reserves are shared with each daughter cell. When those lipid reserves are exhausted, the cell stops reproducing. In addition, when those reserves are exhausted, the cell is old and cannot eat or excrete waste efficiently across it’s cell membrane. A yeast cell typically can reproduce about 4 times during a typical fermentation, after that it is old and tired and tends to enter Stationary phase where it shuts down most of its metabolism and flocculates, waiting for the next batch of aerated wort. Stationary phase is essentially an inactivity phase, resting on the bottom.

Like I said, no conditioning phase as far as the yeast are concerned. Byproducts can be consumed at any point during the high growth phase, but they are a lower energy source than sugar, so guess what? Byproducts are not a biological priority. The brewer therefore needs to plan his pitching rate and fermentation conditions such that the yeast run out of fermentable wort sugar before their lipid reserves are exhausted and they go into stationary phase. Now you have a majority of vigorous yeast that have only undergone 2 reproductions (for example), the sugar is gone, and they are still hungry, so they turn to acetaldehyde and diacetyl as alternate energy sources and maturate the beer. You can help this by doing a diacetyl rest by raising the temperature a few degrees after the first half of fermentation, to keep the yeast active and eating. Where in the fermentation? after the first half, 2/3 to 3/4, when most of the attenuation has occured and raising the temperature is not going to cause rampant growth and the off-flavors associated with it.

Thanks.

[The Beerery]

Thats correct, thats why you can spund and not have any off flavors.. Infact, more good flavors! Worts with more FAN and Zinc will help here as well (step mash, biological acid(sauregut)). Plenty of healthy yeasties as well.
Another aside about spunding is that Jon is correct and the yeast we don't want are at the bottom of the fermenter. When we pull the spund, the yeast that are still eating are in suspension, the transfer to the spunding vessel agitates the yeast( like a stir plate) energizing them and allowing for them to get greater attenuation, all while using them to carbonate your beer with beautiful pure co2 for you.