Hi All!
We started our second batch of beer (Grandma’s Secret Stash) and after an overflow from some rather vigorous fermentation, the temp of our carboy dropped from 68 to 61, and fermentation has slowed considerably…We are using Wyeast’s Irish Ale Yeast (if that helps at all.)
I was wondering what to do? Do I leave it and hope for the best? It is in our basement (which currently has an ambient temperature of 58 degrees.)
ANY tips will help!
Thanks, from a newbie!
The good news is that wort wants to become beer and yeast wants to make it do that. Don’t panic. Doing the wrong thing quickly is more likely to get you in trouble than waiting a bit to make sure you understand what’s happening.
Was this an extract kit? Did you take a gravity reading before pitching the yeast?
How much yeast did you pitch? What was your OG? What temp was the wort when you pitched it? How long has it been?
If the yeast became very active and did its work quickly the it’s possible you’re close to done with active fermentation and the yeast are just cleaning up. In that case allowing the beer to gradually come down to ambient and finish its job is the right thing to do.
If the yeast got off to a roaring start at warmer temperatures and then started slowing down as the wort cooled then that’s a different story. In that case, a little warming and rousing may be in order.
Chime in with some more details and we can probably give some better advice.
And oh, relax. Have a beer.
+1 What Blair said.
Ales can finish the majority of the primary fermentation very quickly. If it were me I’d just keep an eye on it. Take a hydro reading when it starts to clear and see where it’s gotten down to.
It sounds like the timeline for many beers I’ve made over the years (next batch is #250).
Paul
Irish ale yeast should be fine at 60-68, though your fast start suggests that maybe you pitched at a higher temp? In any case it should be fine.
I’m not sure if my husband jotted the temp at which we pitched the yeast…
I do know the reading before pitching was about 1.067. I just took a reading and it’s 1.020 (maybe 1.021 - it was hard to see with the little bit of foam in the thief!)
Is this good? We brewed last Sunday, so we’re just six days into fermentation… It feels like it all happened so fast…
With healthy ale yeast the majority of your gravity drop will happen in a few days which will encourage activity. It goes fast at first and then slows. At 1.020 I would do what you can to raise the temp into the 70’s. If you have to move it to do that you’ll also be rousing the yeast in the process.
At this point depending on the fermentability of the extract you may not get much more gravity drop. Still, warming it up a bit will help any active yeast clean up diacetyl and any other “leftovers” from their main meal.
After warming and 3 more days of take another gravity reading. That will probably be your FG and you can move on to packaging.
I don’t know if you should rouse the yeast. Irish ale yeast is known to produce diacetyl and rousing it or swirling it could produce a diacetyl bomb.
I agree that warming it up may help it to finish up, though it isn’t out of the question that it just may be done.
There is a talk from last years NHC “Avoiding a D Bomb: A Key to Understanding Diacetyl” by Kara Taylor. The talk is very good.
Ms. Taylor advises raising the temp and swirling the yeast to help yeast take up the diacetyl.
Yes, in fact swirling to keep the yeast in suspension actually can help to reduce diacetyl in the finished product.
I would swirl your fermenter a bit and try to warm up your beer to 70F if possible to try to gain a few more gravity points out of it.
While you might be new to the game your yeast has a long history, it knows what to do. Leave it and trust it to do its thing, you are far more likely to make a mistake than it is.
I would move your fermentation vessel to a warmer room. Fifty-eight degrees ambient is going to slow yeast metabolism in a big way. Anything that slows metabolism slows metabolite reduction. Diacetyl is a metabolite. I personally like a touch of diacetyl in British-style beer, but if you are shooting for a relatively ester/diacetyl-free beer, you want the yeast cells to remain in suspension as long as possible.
Have you taken a sample? What did it taste like? Did it have buttery or butterscotch notes? If you cannot detect buttery or butterscotch notes, then you are worrying unnecessarily.
Please bear in mind that you are a new brewer. While wort wants to become beer, one must tackle a rather steep curve when learning to make good beer on a consistent basis. More is learned by making mistakes than is learned by doing everything right. Mistakes teach us the difference between home brewing myth and home brewing reality.
58 ambient is perfect…how cold do you think Europe is? Grama says don’t touch that brew for for 3 more weeks…or else…
Saccharomyces: mistakes teach the difference between myth and reality. Genius!
Soooooo many times I mistook myth for reality. Sometimes the best way to know is to find out.