Have Hot, Horny, Greedy Yeasties Ruined My Beer?

[goatus]

Did my first 23L AG batch last night (I have previously only done a couple of mini 9L batches), all went fairly well, used imersion chiller to get wort down to 27 degrees, pitched at this temp, surrounded the fermenter with frozen bottles and wrapped the whole thing up with sleeping bags. This process worked flawlessly with the mini-batches previously, with the higher pitching temp giving the yeast a nice quick start, but coming down 19 - 20 degrees within a few hours to stop off flavors. Great! Unfortunatly the amount of ice used didnt scale very well up to the 23L batch.. and now I find the US-05 has been fermenting away at 25 degrees and has taken my wort from 1.050 to 1.020 in the first 24 hours. I have now added a heap more ice bottles to my rugged up fermenter in a panic, but fear it will take another few hours to get back to reasonable ale fermenting temp.

Few questions:

How much damage have I done here?

Are the off flavors going to be aweful?

Will these flavors mellow if I age the beer in the keg longer than I first intended?

Its an APA - Should I just dry-hop the hell out of it to cover up the flavors? ;-)



At least the yeast are having a good time. They are bloody loving it.

 

[gjhansford]

I've also started fermenting a bit high on a few occasions and had a similar experience with a runaway fermentation. US-05 (dried I assume) should handle it okay as it's a 'clean' finishing yeast. At least that's my experience. How's it tasting?

:icon_cheers: ghhb

 

[Thirsty Boy]

It might be OK - or not. US-05 is pretty forgiving. You will have t taste it to know.

It will be more estery than otherwise ... these flavours will settle down over a bit of aging, but not so much that if its terrible it will ever be "good". If its got lots of higher alcohols... tough. Learn to put up with them because they aren't going anywhere over a "normal" period of aging.

Dry hopping a bad beer will just make a hoppy bad beer!

Basically - if it comes out of the fermenter bad.. its probably never going to be good... but if it comes out of the fermenter so/so - there is still hope. Keg it, put it in the fridge, forget it for a couple of months

TB

 

[Bribie G]

Same thing happened to me with two batches recently,

<back story> Someone suggested using brine in my frozen bottles to make them colder and longer lasting, however I obviously put in too much salt because they didn't freeze solid. They were cold but I was not getting the latent heat of freezing / thawing so they were a dud as far as lowering wort temps. However I ended up with effectively no cooling for about 36 hours>
</ back story>

So I had a batch of Irish Red (Wy 1084 Irish) and a Best Bitter (Wy 1469) ended up starting at around 26 degrees and never even getting below 20 degrees and finishing within 4 days. However the Irish turned out great and the BB is quite acceptable, in fact I'm tossing up whether to enter it in the BABBs mini comp next week - I'll be having a taste off with 2 other beers the night before to see which one I enter and it's shaping up quite well.

With the US-05 in particular I wouldn't be too concerned, just the estery thing maybe - so it should turn out drinkable but not quite the same as an 18 degree ferment. Pls report in due course :icon_cheers:

Quick edit: did you know that Guinness ferment at 25 degrees for only about 36 hours. If the Irish Ale yeast is fairly similar I might be on to something there

 

[RdeVjun]

So I had a batch of Irish Red (Wy 1084 Irish) and a Best Bitter (Wy 1469) ended up starting at around 26 degrees and never even getting below 20 degrees and finishing within 4 days. However the Irish turned out great and the BB is quite acceptable, in fact I'm tossing up whether to enter it in the BABBs mini comp next week - I'll be having a taste off with 2 other beers the night before to see which one I enter and it's shaping up quite well.

Yeah, I was lucky enough to get a sample of that Irish Red of BribieG's- it is just superb and no real faults that I could spot, so could've fooled me that it had issues. ( I feel like a guinea pig now! B) )

1469 fermented warm can be all over and done with in under three days, I had one runaway like that before I had the temperature control licked. Tasted OK, but a shade estery, I probably wouldn't have entered it in a comp though. Overpitching, like on to a full yeastcake, can speed it up even more. :blink:

With the US-05 in particular I wouldn't be too concerned, just the estery thing maybe - so it should turn out drinkable but not quite the same as an 18 degree ferment. Pls report in due course

Yeah, IMO US05, not that I have all that much experience with it, should tolerate higher temps much more reliably. Some of the straight kits would be far better off with it instead, particularly if they're going to recommend up to high- 20s on the instructions. It seems to be very forgiving and versatile. I'm also getting the feeling that the actual fermentation temperature (within limits) isn't as critical as regulation of the temperature, the wild fluctuations seem to be more harmful- generally speaking of course.

So goatus, don't worry- I'd suggest it will be quite OK. Oh, and congratz on stepping up! :beer:

 

[Howlingdog]

Bribie this is from Bill Yenne's "Guinness The 250-year quest for the perfect pint" Chapter 25 - Inside the Gate with the Master Brewer

 

[Nick JD]

25C is fine for a US05 ale. It'll be fruity but not fusely ... you need 28+ for dominating fusels (at 32C, well, yeah it'll taste like diesel I know this for a fact: SWMBO unplugs fridge to use washing machine and doesn't plug it back in :angry: ).

 

[goatus]

Its down to 20 degrees this morning, hopefully holding at that temp while the yeast clean up after themselves will help me out a bit.

Has a bit of a twang to it, but otherwise tastes ok. I was under the impression higher temperatures will give off a banana-ery note? No trace of that.

Should I transfer to secondary to let the yeast clean up, or leave it on top of the yeast cake?

I should be in my new house in the next two weeks.. then I have room for a fermenting fridge.. thank god.

 

[goatus]

Thought I would clarify my question above:

Will the yeast clean up after itself better if I transfer to secondary, or if I leave it on the yeast cake (obviously more yeast involved?)?

And should I transfer it to secondary now (Gravity is at 1.018 now), or still leave it a week in primary?

 

[Nick JD]

I don't transfer to secondary, but I'm sure someone else can advise you best practice.

 

[mxd]

So I had a batch of Irish Red (Wy 1084 Irish)

OT

Hey BribieG

can you share your recipe for the red, I made one that is OK at best.


cheers
Matt