Fermentation temperature control… that’s what separates pro-brewers from home brewers…
It’s not just about making sure your fermentation is stable…
It’s about pumping flavor out of yeast during the growth phase of fermentation…
See, there are many reasons why every home brewer should have some way to control the temperature of their fermentor…
Dry heat or not, triple digit summers in AZ makes it extremely hard to manually control fermentation temperature…
… not to mention it does make brewing outside quite brutal…
Which is why I’ve opted for a Magic Chef wine cooler… for fermentation…
… but you don’t need to go that far… I’ve seen many brewers build fermentation chambers or if you are in a cooler place then placing the fermentor in a large bucket or the bathtub, filling it up with water and dropping some frozen water bottles works just fine…
If you are up north… wind chill factor or not, negative thirty degrees will also make it hard to control temperature…
… and frankly I’ve never had the need to use a warming pad or belt to keep fermentation temperatures in check…
So rather than covering different ways to control temperature, I want to talk about why you NEED to control temperature…
There are many reasons, but one of the most important ones is flavor development…
For many beers this is not as important… A pale ale can be good if it’s brewed clean or with some fruity esters…
It’s mostly preference driven…
… but a beer like a Belgian Blonde, on the other hand, it’s a little more high maintenance…
The yeast used to brew Belgian beers have different characteristics than those used to brew American ales… they don’t produce clean beers at low temperatures…
They tend to put out phenolic notes if fermented at low temperatures…
But they also put out esters at higher temperatures… and for Belgian beers, you usually want both…
At least I did…
You can see how I brewed my Belgian Blonde here:
https://brewbeeranddrinkit.com/how-to-brew-a-belgian-blonde/
Notice that the recipe is extremely simple… almost too simple as many Belgian recipes are…
… what makes the beer stand out is not the recipe, but the process…
Not just mashing temperatures… yeast pitching rates, pitching temperatures, and fermentation temperatures become extremely important…
See… I don’t normally worry much about yeast pitching temperature… as long as I’m within 5 F… I’m good…
… but with this beer, you need to pitch really close to fermentation temperature… ideally at fermentation temperature… and you need to let the yeast go up in temperature…
The flavor will develop during the first two, maybe three days… there really is no way to measure exactly when to start raising temperature… you don’t go by attenuation, you go by yeast growth…
… and experience is pretty much the only way to know… you just know, you know?
The only way you can more or less tell is by the Krausen… about 24-48 hrs after you pitch, your krausen will start to reach it’s peak… you want to let the temperature go up just before then…
That way, yeast produce phenolic notes when fermenting at cooler temperatures and nice esters when they go up in temperature…
Cheers!
