Pitching Disaster

[greggo]

Hi guys. Pitched a brew last night. Put into ferment fridge, Everything good. Checked before heading off to work to see if ferment started and OHHHH Shit. The light bulb was stuck permanently on. Faulty temp control. Temp inside fridge was 65 degrees. So i lifted brew out of hot box and left to sit on concrete to cool. Came home at lunch time and temp was at 22 degrees so assuming i've just beheaded my yeast i repitched a US05 that i keep on standby. Checked when i got home tonight and some action just starting. I'm thinking it should ferment out ok but will iI have some funky flavours.???????

Cheers greggo.

 

[Florian]

Wait and see.

EDIT: or in other words: Possible, but not guaranteed. Depends on so many factors (How warm did the actual wort get, did it ferment at all while at high temp, etc etc).
There's only one way to find out, so RDW(too much)HAHB

 

[Helles]

If ferment got to 65'c all is fucked
Yeast and beer are rooted
Pour it on the garden all is lost
Dont even bother trying to save it

Unless you used a can kit and then it could be better than it usually is with a bit of luck

 

[DJR]

Hopefully it was just the air inside the fridge at 65 and the brew never got that hot

 

[chunckious]

I'm amazed @ 65 from a fridge light.

 

[pmastello]

You are using a Hot box? In Summer? In Toowoomba?
What tempreature do you ferment at? With US05 I would be aiming at 17-18 personally.

 

[greggo]

Sorry guys. Should have said it was a light bulb and it was on all night. Air temp inside was 65 degrees and wort was bloody hot. My temp control was set at 18 degrees. Night time temps in toowoomba can get down to 15 - 16 degrees and when i leave for work in the morning i change over to fridge setting for cooling during the day.

 

[scottc1178]

I can't really offer much advice mate, but the fact that u actually left work to check on your beer at lunch time! Nice!

 

[QldKev]

I'm amazed @ 65 from a fridge light.

I think he means not just a fridge light, a light globe in the fridge.

But just overnight. Mathematically to heat 23L wort from say 20c to 65c using a 75w heater (ie if all the 75w energy was just heat and no light, guess at size of globe) it would take 16 hours, allowing zero loss. So that's no losses to heating air in the fridge, or the fridge loosing heat which it would be doing at that temp. Don't forget energy is also being used as light.

Then cooling back to 22c before lunch

Did the controller jump to Fahrenheit? 65F = 18.3C, and then leaving it in the heat today it gained 4c. That could explain it.



But in the case it hit 65c pretty quick your yeast would have died pretty quickly and hopefully didn't throw a lot of off flavors. If you then pitched more yeast once it was at 22c your may have saved the beer, as long as you get the temp into the range for your beer style.

QldKev

 

[DJR]

Sorry guys. Should have said it was a light bulb and it was on all night. Air temp inside was 65 degrees and wort was bloody hot. My temp control was set at 18 degrees. Night time temps in toowoomba can get down to 15 - 16 degrees and when i leave for work in the morning i change over to fridge setting for cooling during the day.

I'd be avoiding the use of the light bulb altogether given your problem - the fridge will insulate the beer from getting down to the nighttime temps plus you have the thermal mass of the beer itself keeping things steady - put a stickon thermometer on the fermenter itself and check for yourself...

 

[greggo]

Thanx QldKev. Hoping your on the mark there.

 

[alawishus]

Sorry guys. Should have said it was a light bulb and it was on all night. Air temp inside was 65 degrees and wort was bloody hot. My temp control was set at 18 degrees. Night time temps in toowoomba can get down to 15 - 16 degrees and when i leave for work in the morning i change over to fridge setting for cooling during the day.

Surely this is a joke?

Why would one put a heat lamp in a fridge?

Ala

 

[stux]

Surely this is a joke?

Why would one put a heat lamp in a fridge?

Ala

To warm the beer up when the beer temp gets below the set-point.

I find a heatbelt around the fermenter with the temperature probe suspended in the wort (via thermowell) works much better though. Now I just wish I didn't have a lightbulb socket in my fridge anymore

I don't live in Qld though

 

[Spork]

Surely this is a joke?

Why would one put a heat lamp in a fridge?

Ala

Exactly!
They are so inefficient.
I prefer my reptile heating cord.


@ OP:
The beer will be the best you have ever tasted (I'm assuming the wort was nowhere near the 65c air temp) but you will never be able to exactly replicate the batch.
Wait and see, hopefully no harm done. Do you like banana?

 

[[email protected]]

my fermenting fridge can drop to 14-15c on a cold night so I use a heater to heat the fridge to 18c when the day gets to 30c I am cooling in the fridge so heater is off. So I doubt its a joke.

 

[carniebrew]

Surely this is a joke?

Why would one put a heat lamp in a fridge?

It's a brewfridge, not a fridge....i.e. the fridge is only turned on by the (external) temperature controller when the fridge goes above your set temp, e.g. 18 degrees. When the temp drops below 18, it turns the lamp on. I have a 150w red lamp in the bottom of my brewfridge.