Lawrence Brewers Guild

I am currently setting up a space for my home brewing endeavors and had some questions about temp control.

1. What is the hottest and coolest I would need to have my fermenting environment?

2. Is there a chart or table that lists fermenting temps for specific beer types or yeast types?

3. Are there any good products out there for controlling temperature while fermenting or does anyone have a good home made system for this?

Ideally I would like an environment that I could just dial up a temp and not have to worry about it dropping or rising.

My answers anyways...

1) Depends on your yeast. As you noted in your 2nd question, yeast and style play a major part.

2) Most people use liquid yeast from White Labs or Wyeast. You can go to each manufactures website and they list the yeast and what style it is to be used for and the temp, percent of flocculation (how well the yeast drops out from suspension), and percent attenuation (how well the yeast will reach final gravity or how low it will take your FG down.)for each strain. There are other factors that play into flocculation and attenuation too. Dry yeast should be the same.

3) Most people use an old fridge thats gutted out to be able to hold their fermenting beer. A temp controller is added to the fridge with the desired temp. set points. This runs the fridge and keeps temps constant inside. Typical temp controllers are Johnson, Ranco, and Love. The digital models cost a tad more, but are more accurate, have more settings, and easier to use.

How is this for a temp. control

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... 0262602349

wlockwood wrote:How is this for a temp. control

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... 0262602349

Yup...I use 3 of this very type. Not a bad price either.