Brewing two beers this weekend... but only have one brew fridge.

[JonathanMSE]

So, my plan for this weekend is to brew two beers. (Its very rare that I get enough free time to do so... and I'm down to 9 bottles right now... which will be gone well before either of these are ready!)

My dilemma is I've only got one brew fridge to control temperature. So, do I brew one only and let it ferment in the brew fridge. Or do I do two and let one ferment in an uncontrolled environment?


The first is a Saison:

Extra Pale 2.5kg
Wheat 450g
Vienna 15og

15g challenger at 60 mins
50 g challenger at flame out

Belle Saison yeast

The second is an Amarillo almost Smash (From the Greg Hughesbook)

Pale 4.7kg
Carapils 235g

Amarillo 54g 70 mins
Amarillo 27g 15 mins
Amarillo 27g 5 mins
Amarillo 83g Flame out

US 05 (rather than Wyeast 1056 in the book)



So.. I'm thinking with the warm weather we're having it would make sense to let the Saison do its thing. It shouldn't drop below 22c during fermentation if I leave it in the kitchen. While the Amarillo can be kept in the fridge at a constant18c

Thoughts?

 

[moto748]

All my beer is produced in an 'uncontrolled environment', ie, whatever the temperature happens to be in my kitchen! Fridges are far from essential. I've given up on lagers, but most beers can be produced perfectly well at room temperature. I've done a couple of saisons lately, including the sweet cherry one. As you say, it seems sensible to let that one rip at room temp and maybe save the fridge for your smash.

 

[phettebs]

You can get away with higher temps on the saison so that would be my choice to do as well. I would try to control it a little bit the first few days. I've done the "swamp cooler" method over the years with limited success. The other thing I do is just wrap the FV in a wet beach towel. That does help as long as you keep it in the coolest place you have.

 

[Clint]

This! Yeah,agree a wet towel round it definitely won't harm,as won't some high temps on the SAISON. I plan to use my brew fridge for getting the wort down to temp then control that temp and my other brews on the bench will be wheats and SAISONs.

 

[MickDundee]

I’ve done this every so often, I use a fairly resilient yeast like US-05 and keep it somewhere in the house fairly cool (utility room worktop).

 

[Clint]

Notty/Wilko Gervin is also good for low 20's.

 

[JonathanMSE]

Thanks, lots of good advice.

I think by the looks of it I'll go with my initial plan of leaving the Saison to whatever temps the room throws at it and try to manage it a little with towels and what not.
While keeping the other at a constant temperature.

I guess the only other query would be, if the Saison drops to a lower temp while fermenting would it still develop all those lovely spice flavours?

I've only uses Belle Saison yeast once before and if memory serves me correctly I let it get up to around 30c and the results were great.

 

[DCBC]

It's been mentioned but I would definitely go down the saison route. I brewed for the Malt Miller / Elusive wit competition a couple of weeks ago but my kit won't comfortably handle less than 30L, I only (currently) have 20L fermentation chamber space and I didn't really want 30L of witbier anyway.

So I doubled the ingredients and inoculated half with Mangrove Jack's M29 French Saison Yeast at 30C and left it uncontrolled. This beer has been held above the high teens by the heat of my brewery which has a lot of glass on the sun-facing side, but it has fluctuated from probably 19C to 30C over the course of the last week! I wrapped it in thermawrap to keep the fluctuations to a minimum but I don't think it matters much with saisons. I find with saisons, as long as you hit the high temperatures early in the fermentation and keep above 20C after that it, it will produce good beer. I cracked the lid the other day though and it smells fantastic, so fingers crossed. It also kept bubbling for six days after pitch which is unusual in my experience, so it seems very active. Bottling on Sunday.