First time brewing at my house with my equipment. I am using California ale yeast for a porter. I have a garage fridge I am going to use for fermentation, so I can set the temp as desired. The liquid yeast has a recommend temp of 70 - 73 and to start fermentation at 70. I will be using an "ale pail" with a temp Strip in it. 1) will the temp strip be able to accurately read the wort temp through the thick plastic of the pail? 2) what temp should I set the fridge at? 3) yeast vile recommends 70 degrees for pitching and Beginning fermentation. However, I've heard from a lot of people to always pitch and ferment below 70? What temp should I use? Thank you for any response and help!
It'll be pretty close. Not as good as a probe inside the wort, but pretty good. Given your setup, maybe about 5-6 degrees lower than the peak temperature you want to hold your wort down to. Fermentation creates heat. Pitching low and letting rise slowly to fermentation temp is generally a good idea. Again, with your setup, you could do something like an average fridge temp of 65F or so. That should keep your fermentation withing a reasonable range.
Does your garage stay at a constant temp around 65? Probably not, so you're going to have to do something to manage the temp to keep it pretty steady for fermentation. If your bucket will fit inside the fridge, great, because the fridge is an insulated box that can keep warm ambient garage temps from getting to your fermentor. But not so great if you have your bottled beer supply in there since 65 degrees is not the temp where you want to drink your beers. Another problem is that you probably cannot set your fridge thermostat at 65, so you'll need to buy an external thermostat that interrupts the power to the fridge. It has a thermocouple that is inserted into the fridge thru the door seal, and the control unit will hang on the side of the fridge. The power supply for the controller will plug into the wall outlet, and then the plug for the fridge will plug into the back of the controller's plug. Thus it interrupts the power to control the fridge temp and will kick on the chilling equipment when your warm air in the garage starts to make it too warm inside the fridge. Johnson Controls makes a good one, and these devices are available at homebrew supply outlets for about $70 or so.
I actually have two fridges because we just purchased a new one for the House and I already have a beer fridge. I am going to dial the temp in at 65 the put the fermenter in there. If I can keep the fridge just for fermenting home brew I'll Probably invest in an external thermostat. Thanks.
I have two freezers with controllers, and they are very necessary for brewing in TX (it's way too hot here most of the year, and you can't keep your AC that low). I set them (usually) at 64F, and there's a small amount of fluctuation (not a lot, a degree or two at most). Setting your controller on 64 doesn't mean your fridge will immediately be at 64, you might have to tweak it (I did). Once you get the controller dialed in to your fridge or freezer, your ambient temps should be good for most ale yeasts if you go with 64-65F ambient temperature. Eventually I wound up buying a second freezer and controller. The good thing about having these items is that I have the capability to make more than just basic ales (I can lager!). Having the capability doesn't necessarily mean having the gumption to make lagers tho. When I'm not too busy with school or band (or just being a slacker), I'm generally trying to pump out production as fast as possible (which saves me money on commercial beer!). I can't afford to have freezer space tied up for too long. However, the last couple months I've not had a full rotation going, so I might just try a lager sometime soon. Probably a smash lager, knowing me. Anybody got a good smash lager yeast, or preferred base malt for lagers? *I don't have controllers that can heat the beer if it gets cooler than the set temperature. We've had some very cold spells (for us at least) and during one of those my bro was out of town, with the house heat set to 55. I am quite sure my beer got way below 65, probably down as low as 53 or 54F, and for days on end. Primary fermentation was complete by then, with no noticeable changes in yeast performance during bottle conditioning. n=2, so take that for what it's worth, but I do have some first hand experience in the matter (I am virtually certain that the yeasts in use at the time were either US-05 or nottingham or both, but I'm slightly drunk and I'm not going to look it up on my blog).
