The importance of controlling the temperature of your beer's fermentation.

Generally speaking there are two types of yeast used to ferment beer. Top Fermenting and Bottom Fermenting Yeasts also known at Ale Yeast and Lager Yeast- Ales are typically best in the 20 - 22˚c range. Lagers are typically best in the 7 - 13˚c range. This explains why lagers were traditionally fermented in the winter and stored in caves or cellars. Colder temperatures also mean things move more slowly which is why it takes longer for lager yeasts to do their job. All Yeast manufacturers have a suggested temperature range for each style of yeast that they distribute. Fermenting too hot can produce excessive fruity-flavoured esters or harsh flavoured fusel alcohols. Ferment too low and you can have a sluggish or incomplete fermentation. Keep in mind that an active fermentation generates heat - a 19 - 25 litre (5 - 6 gallon) batch can produce 5 - 8 degrees of heat as compared to the ambient room temperature. So what do I use in my set-up? First off I got find myself a cheap chest freezer. Facebook Marketplace, Craigslist, Community Bulletin Boards - ask friends and family if they know anyone who’s downsizing and getting rid of a chest freezer - but keep in mind the size of your fermenters…if they don’t fit, there’s no point. I’ve actually got a couple of chest freezers I use as fermentation chambers and lucked out when I found a freezer which can hold two of the 14 gallon SSBrewTech Brew Buckets I love these fermenters because they’re incredibly easy to clean, make it super easy to dry hop or add fruit additions and as far as the temperature control thing goes, they have built in thermal wells that work perfectly with the temperature probe for my Inkbird Temperature Controller. This device allows me to designate a heat source and a cooling source and then control a number of factors like the desired temperature and allowable temperature range. This allows me to dial in my ferments to exactly where I want them and to be consistent with each batch I make. So the freezer is the cooling source obviously, and for the heating source I use a brew-belt that wraps around the fermenter. I find this is a pretty gentle way to apply heat if heat is ever required. The other benefit to having a freezer comes once fermentation is complete. I dial the temperature down to just above freezing and leave it there for three or four days to cold crash the beer. The cold temperature helps get yeast and proteins to coagulate, become heavy and drop to the bottom of the fermenter or drop out of suspensions and this means a cleaner beer as a result. This is one of the reasons why lager beers are usually crystal clear. They undergo a long ‘lagering’ process at cool temperatures during which time everything drops out of suspension. Here are some links to the resources I mention during the video. Yeast Charts - byo.com/resource/yeast/ www.brewersfriend.com/yeasts/ Great article that talks about temperature control here -byo.com/article/controlling-fermentation-temperatu… Inkbird Temperature Controller tinyurl.com/yhgd1eky Brew-belt tinyurl.com/gkt7ps8s SS Brewtech BrewBuckets www.ssbrewtech.com/pages/brew-bucket Cold Crashing Articles tinyurl.com/kzd2zpu9 tinyurl.com/3c66xbyz Beeriodic Table t-Shirt tinyurl.com/dxc3jnuu Music by: Moins Le Quartet Songs in order of appearance: In a Jiffy, Jive With Me, Wobbly, Pitch and Pull and In a Jiffy (second time) #checkerheadbrewing #livetobrew #passionforbrewing #beer #tipsandtricksforhomebrewers