I put a beer brew on just a simple wit barrel brew, but a cold snap here in nz has dropped the average temp to just below 20c and it has stopped bubbling away after only 4 days. Is there a cheap and easy way to get the temperature back up and keep it up. I don’t have a heating pad.
Unless you’re using kviek, the yeast will be fine. It’ll be slow but fine. If you’re worried, test your gravity at your normal ferment period (I usually do 2 weeks) and then give it an extra week and test again. If it hasn’t moved, you’re done fermenting. Heck, you could leave it a month longer and still be ok. There are always tales of “I left this in the back of my closet for a year, is it OK?” and it turns out fine.
Thanks, good to know it’s not going to be a sock brew.
You could get a heating pad, or maybe get a bigger barrel and fill it with warm water (although you would have to keep adding more water as it cools).
Go out and buy a hydrometer. And then actually measure the specific gravity.
If the specific gravity is dropping, then your beer is still fermenting regardless of how much “bubbling” it’s doing