Quote:
Originally Posted by Markusgc
at my brewery I used to pitch around 70 all the time and ferment at 68 for ales. never a problem.
Bob at St. Somewhere pitches at city water temp (roughly the same as Wraths') and he does fine, too.
I think there are plenty of ale yeasts where pitching and fermenting between 68 to 70 is fine. I'm not sure about your place, but lots of micro's seem to use one or two house strains for every style so if you pick one that's good in that range I'm sure it works out fine for everything.
But pitching between 80 to 85 defies all conventional wisdom for avoiding excessive ester production in the early stages of fermentation, particularly for a style like APA where you generally want a clean profile from the yeast.
Wrath used WY 1272 which has a suggested range of 60-72 and Wyeast recommends fermenting at the lower end of that range for a clean flavor profile.
I wasn't trying to be a dick to Wrath I was trying to offer a suggestion to improve his beer, as I wasn't sure if he was aware of how important pitching and ferm temps are to produce quality beer. He said recently he was new to this.
Even if he's making good beer now I am nearly certain the biggest bang for his buck to improve his current process would be a better chilling system and controlling ferm temps.
Edit: I just googled St Somewhere and it says they are a brewer of Belgian Ales. From what I understand, Belgian yeast strains are pretty much the exception to the rule regarding cool ferm temps. Some of those Belgian strains are fermented at up to 90 by the end of fermentation.
Last edited by Jbrochu; 07-07-2011 at 12:32 PM.