Newby - Summer brewing

[010574]

Have been a fan of the forum for some time, but have only now found time to post

I am a newby to the brewing business. I currently have a Coopers Pale Ale in the fermenter (at day 10).
Due to 4-5 days in the high thirties I am struggly to keep my brew below 26-28 degrees.
What sort of effect will this have on my brew ??

Many thanks in advance

[bullfrog]

The earlier stages of the fermentation is where it's most critical to keep your temps low. It's in the first few days where high temperatures can lead to esters and fusels in your brew. It isn't as important to keep your temperatures so strictly controlled post-fermentation, however, just because the yeast has already done it's thing (although if you're bottle conditioning then you don't want to raise the temps over 30 for fear of killing your yeast and then not having any to produce your carbonation.)

I've read that some people are heavily of the opinion that Coopers yeast can handle slightly higher temps than say US05 or S-04 without any ill effects, though I haven't used Coopers yeasts so can't comment as to that.

Just a quick temp control tip, before I had my fermenting fridge, I took myself down to Bunnings and picked up a couple of large tubs (83L in my case) so that when I would put a brew down, I'd put the fermenter in one of the tubs, fill with some water and then rotate frozen PET bottles either once or twice a day, depending on what temps I was trying to maintain. You don't even need to buy tubs for this method, you could use a laundry sink, an old esky, any vessel large enough, really. It's cheap, it's simple and it will definitely help you with your ales (lagers are a different story, though).

[drsmurto]

Have a read of this section of Palmers How to Brew

Generally you want to keep ales in the 18-20C zone.

At what point in the fermentation did the temp get to 26?

If you can keep the initial stages of fermentation under control (18-20C) then it makes less of an impact if the temperature rises after this. Once fermentation is complete, normally 3-4 days, the production of fusel alcohols often found in high temp brewed beer become less of an issue. The coopers yeast also tends to produce a lot of banana esters at higher temps (20C and over).

That said, temperature control doesn't have to be difficult or expensive.

A dead fridge with frozen 2L bottles of water rotated daily can keep the temp under control. If you can't get your hands on a dead fridge then something box-like to fit the fermenter in plus the ice will do an OK job. Check out how I do it here - link.

If you have the cash then fitting an external thermostat is an ideal way of controlling temperature. Set and forget. It's what I have on my actual ferment fridge (the one in the link is used occasionally) as well as the keg fridge. link

Cheers
DrSmurto

EDIT - in my experience, Coopers yeast throws far more 'off' flavours/esters at higher temperatures than either US-05 or S-04.

[SuperBroo]

I've been just wrapping a wet towel around the fermenter each morning, and the brew is sitting at 22 - 24c all the time.

outside temp around 30 deg, and my shed is dark blue, so gets a bit hotter inside...

worth a go - costs nothing


cheers,
Chris WA