Fermentation, conditioning and temperatures...Oh My!!!

Ingredients
1

Hey all.  I have some more questions as I am getting ready to attempt my second batch (hopefully next week) That seem to fit here rather than the thread I have in the Equipment section.

On my first batch, I made several mistakes, temperature control being a major one, that resulted in a less than stellar beer.  It smells and looks like beer, and even kind of tastes like beer with no real glaring off-flavors, but not the hop aroma and flavor I like in an IPA.  Also, the is very little carbonation, and absolutely no head.  I’m pretty sure the carbonation problem comes from not enough priming sugar, based on the temperature of the beer during fermentation, and most likely problems with the yeast from not so good temperature control.

First question is this:  Once primary fermentation has completed, should I leave the temperature the same (say I fermented at 65F) or should I raise the temperature up to say 70F to condition in the fermenter for a week before bottling?  Any advantage/disadvantage to either method?

When calculating the priming sugar, would the temperature I use be the 65F during primary fermentation, or if I raised the temperature to 70F for a week of conditioning after primary, would I use 70F as the temperature for the calculation?  Then there is cold crashing.  If I did that, should it be right after primary or after a week of conditioning, and what temperature do you use for the priming sugar calculation after that (If i did or didn’t raise the temp after primary)?

For the second batch, I will be using a secondary fermenter to put the beer on some blood orange puree for a week.  Should the secondary be done at the same temp of 65F or raise it to 70F, and of course that leads right back to the previous question, LOL?

Cold Crashing…If I decided to do it, what temperature is it done at, how long, and does anything different have to be done before bottling (more yeast, more sugar…) and I do plan on doing a Hefeweizen as my second batch, so should a Hefe be crashed or not?

Hope I am not killing you guys with all the newbie questions, and thanks for your patience.

Erik

2

Priming sugar Calcs use the highest temp reached after fermentation has completed. This is because as it warms up, it off gases co2 that will not reabsorb during the cold crash. The other part is yes, raising temp after the bulk of fermentation is a good idea to convince the yeast to keep active and clean up fermentation byproducts

3

Ok, I’ll see if I can add my $0.02 on the cold crash question.

I do gelatin fining.  After the beer is worked to FG, I chill the beer to below 40F (I like to go to 35F to be sure) for a couple days to get the chill haze proteins to come out of solution so the gelatin I add on day 3 or 4 of the chill can latch on and clear that stuff out.  There will still be enough yeast in solution for bottle carbing and it won’t effect your bottling sugar amount.

Cheers and enjoy your good beer.

4

I was definitely way off on the priming sugar then.  Having never done it before, I used the temperature at bottling and not what the warmest it ever got to was.  That would have made a lot of difference in that first beer.  Using the proper temp, would have added an additional .25oz of sugar.  I guess that a little sugar goes a long way.  Thanks for the reply.

5

Thanks for the answer Phil.  It has been added to my notebook for future reference.

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You’re welcome, that’s why we are all here: to learn. Believe me, I am still learning, not anywhere close to being done with that and like most, probably never will be [emoji6]

7

[quote]First question is this:  Once primary fermentation has completed, should I leave the temperature the same (say I fermented at 65F) or should I raise the temperature up to say 70F to condition in the fermenter for a week before bottling?  Any advantage/disadvantage to either method?

[/quote]

Let it rise.  The flavor profile is set early on during fermentation, so don’t worry about off flavors.
The yeast will become more invigorated and they will do an even better job of cleaning up residual byproducts, resulting in a cleaner beer.  Just don’t go nuts and free-rise from the first day.  Your plan on starting a week before bottling is ok, though it would be better if the yeast are still going but you can tell they are slowing down.  66%-75% of the way to target FG seems to be a conservative guesstimate.  Others may say go a bit earlier than that.  Try them both and see what works best for you.