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I brewed my first all grain beer on Sunday; everything went well barring one leaky tap and a slight blockage on the tap in my kettle due to a poor hop filter. It is supposed be an IPA style beer using all Maris otte pale malt with Columbus, citra and pioneer hops. The yeast I used was danstar nottingham. OG was 1055

I live in an apartment in the UK and struggle to drop the temp below 24 celcius (75F). Because I know the optimum temp for nottingham is below 21C (70F) I added a wet T-shirt over the beer to keep it cool. When I did my first gravity check after the first day (fermentation looked very vigorous) I found that the temp was still up at 24C and the gravity has already dropped to 1019! Since then I have dropped it into a nice bath with the wet shirt wicking up the water but I'm worried that I'll get a huge number of bad flavours and 'hotness' from all of the fusel alcohols etc associated with hot fermentation.

Is there any way to counteract this? I understand that time fixes these problems but I was hoping to have a good idea of how this recipe works so I can refine it in my next brew, if I can't taste it properly I might have to wing the next brew.

I am planning to dry hop and wondered if this would remove any of the nastiness?

Because the beer I am brewing is so floraly and citrusy a lot of the mango etc off flavours mith actually be useful, it's mainly the hotness I want to remove.

And in terms of moving forward, I am going to struggle to maintain the temperature with any brew that I do due to lack of space for a chest freezer. Because of this I will probably try to move on to darker beers in the future. Can you guys recomend any Yeats strains that work nicely at higher temperatures that would work for a red ale?

Thanks,

Jacob.

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  • Are you against temperature control? :)
    – markus
    Commented May 28, 2015 at 7:12
  • I'm curious how this beer ended up? I've been in a similar situation as you regarding warm temps and lack of space. If you can, use a tub and fill with water, then add frozen plastic water bottles to keep the water at the appropriate temp. I've found 1-2 frozen water bottles does the trick.
    – JWalkerB
    Commented Sep 4, 2015 at 18:16

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It seems that the ferment is already more than half finished, so there already some bonus flavors in your beer. I found some people saying 72F is fine, 75F is a little estery, 80F is really too warm.

You can try to cool the ferment a little more in the later stages, it might help, but this yeast might finish up by tomorrow.

In the future, try other strains, some saison strains can go much warmer. Dark vs light recipes don't really matter, it's the yeast that determines the best temperature for the style.

edit: Denny is right about Belgian strains being good at warm temps, I should have remembered the belgian banana bomb I made once.

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  • I'll see how this one goes, I had a sneaky taste after I measured the gravity and it wasn't great but wasn't horrible. I'll just chalk this one up to a learning experience. Thanks.
    – Jacob
    Commented May 19, 2015 at 10:03
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    It is a common myth that Belgian yeasts like warmer temps. If you read "Brew Like a Mionk" you'll find that most Belgian breweries start the yeast in the low-mid 60s and let it rise after the bulk of fermentation is done.
    – Denny Conn
    Commented May 19, 2015 at 15:19

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