Home brewing for novices

[Kierun]

Awesome, going to note this down for when I actually have a home brew setup, even though it's looking like ~3 years out from now haha.

[Monkey Uncle]

Your yeast fermented faster at a lower temperature?

Correct.

Well, I don't know that is what made it faster. But when I brewed at room temp (74 deg) I would always transfer to a secondary at 7 days, when it was still quite active, and it would take anywhere from 7 more days (quickest) to 21 more days in the secondary for it to finally finish (so total of 14-28 days). This time I chilled the wort faster (using a new wort chiller), pitched the yeast, and kept it at 66 days and I hit my FG in 5 days.

While it seems absurd that a lower temp would make it go faster, that is indeed what occurred.

And it happened to both a 5 gallon pale ale and a 3 gallon stout, both somewhat higher gravity beers. So odd.

What was the pitching temp of the wort before you started using the new wort chiller?  I'm wondering if it was actually warm enough to kill off some of your yeast, or at least seriously stress it out, and maybe that's why it was taking so long when you were fermenting at a higher temp.  Did it take a long time for fermentation to really get going?

In my limited experience, fermentation goes really fast when the temp during fermentation is in the low to mid 70's.  Also, at around 74-75 F, I start getting a banana-like off flavor due to the yeast being stressed.  It goes away eventually, but it takes a couple of extra weeks of aging in the bottle.  Therefore, I always try to keep my fermentation temp below 74 F.  But I'm sure this varies depending on the yeast you are using.

[specialkayme]

What was the pitching temp of the wort before you started using the new wort chiller?

Prior to three batches ago, my wort temp at pitching was usually low 80's. I chilled using an ice bath and ALWAYS ran out of ice before I could get it cold enough. Usually when it got close enough that I wouldn't kill the yeast, I'd pitch. Occasionally (don't *angry mob attack me* here), time commitments and issues being what they were, I had no choice to pitch when the temps were in the low 90's. Whenever I could, I'd let the wort sit over night and pitch the next morning, usually in the low 70's.

I'm wondering if it was actually warm enough to kill off some of your yeast, or at least seriously stress it out, and maybe that's why it was taking so long when you were fermenting at a higher temp.  Did it take a long time for fermentation to really get going?

I acknowledge it as a very real possibility, if not likely, and I know it wasn't a good thing to pitch at those temps, but honestly I noticed very little difference in either a) time that it took fermentation to really take off, b) time it took fermentation to finish, or c) end flavor in the beers that were pitched in the 70's, 80's and 90's. That's largely why I didn't mess with it that much. Nearly all of the beers started showing good signs of fermentation 24-36 hours after pitching, and were going strong at 48-72 hours, regardless of pitching temp. So if a beer that was pitched at 72 took 48 hours to go strong and finished in 3 weeks, and a beer that was pitched at 90 took 48 hours to go strong and finished in 3 weeks, why wait? A few beers would give some off flavors (some esters, some banana type flavors) that I knew was a result of the higher temps, but most of those beers were hefes that the yeast was supposed to produce banana flavors. None of the beers were undrinkable. They probably wouldn't win awards or anything, but they were fine.

These two batches that were chilled to 66 before pitching were showing signs of fermentation 12 hours later, and going full blast at 24 hours. So it was much faster, yes. We'll see about the flavor though. Hopefully I'm drastically improving in my ability to produce better beers. Which is the whole fun part of homebrew.

[grantmeaname]

I agree that it was likely faster due to the lower pitching temperature, not the lower fermenting temperature.