Quick Fermentation

[Brewing_Brad]

Hey guys,

I've just witnessed something I've never seen before, and I'm impressed and a little scared at the same time: 4kg (ish) of fermentable sugars gone in a few days.

It was relatively hot here in Melbourne last week, up around the 30 mark and the temp on my fermenter rose to about 25-28 and the airlock WENT OFF like a frog in a sock! It seriously sounded like that little bell thing on a pressure cooker the way it was rattling and gurgling like a crazy thing!

So, I started it on Wednesday eve and by Friday night it had all but stopped. I took a reading then and it has gone from 1.080 down to 1.012, and this morning she's at 1.010 (which is my expected FG). I'm assuming it was the heat that caused the little yeasties to get all excited and now that she's cooled down, so have they.

I'm going to leave it for a week to see what happens and to see if it'll clear up a bit, but so far it smells and tastes ok. It was definitly an interesting "welcome back to brewing" for me, I can tell you.

Anyway, just thought I'd share.

Cheers
Brad

 

[Bubba]

Hey Brad, what were you brewing and what were your ingredients/yeats.
Those temps not good, as the Esters created at high temps will give your beer a taste out of profile.
Interested to hear how it turns out anyway...let us know.

 

[Brewing_Brad]

Hey Brad, what were you brewing and what were your ingredients/yeats.
Those temps not good, as the Esters created at high temps will give your beer a taste out of profile.
Interested to hear how it turns out anyway...let us know.

Hey Bubba,

Ingredients were:

# Brewcraft Munich Lager Goo
# 1.5 kg Light Dry Malt
# 2kg Dextrose
# 50g Fuggles pellets

The yeast was the one that came with the kit (muggins here forgot to pick up a pack of better yeast when he was at the shop).

Cheers
Brad

 

[Bubba]

Hey Bubba,

Ingredients were:

# Brewcraft Munich Lager Goo
# 1.5 kg Light Dry Malt
# 2kg Dextrose
# 50g Fuggles pellets

The yeast was the one that came with the kit (muggins here forgot to pick up a pack of better yeast when he was at the shop).

Cheers
Brad

That's a lot of fermentables Brad. I get a SG of about 1081 and a FG of about 1015 and 9% AV, so you have had high attenuation from the kit yeast but will get a very high alc beer at 9% or even more with higher attenuation.
As I said, at those temps you definately wont get a lager, and will get some Esters and flavours from the higher temp so should be interesting once you get to taste.
Ales 18-20 degrees, lagers a lot less, around 14 is high enough, then cold crash.

Happy brewing!

 

[Brewing_Brad]

Ok, so I just racked it into a secondary fermenter and I did notice some interesting notes in the smell. Not unpleasant, but definitely something different.

Regardless, I'm going to stick it away and forget about it for a week or two and see what happens.

Stay tuned.
Brad

 

[Brewlord]

Some advice passed on to me when I started brewing is that high temps cause the yeasties to just eat like mad and then when the sugars gone they start on each other. So not only may you get a lot of fusel alcohols which equals hangovers, you may also get some bad or off flavours. They would have chowed down on the dextrose in short order. I brew in very hot temperatures (high 30s to 40 deg C) in my garage over summer and using two to four 1.25 litre PET ice bottles changed as required (sometimes daily in the early part of fermentation down to every few days later on) I can keep ale down to about 20 - 22 deg c easily. I stay right away from lager yeasts in summer - thats my winter thing in the garage with no cooling and down to a constant comfortable 9-12 deg C.

I had them almost boiling out there in the 'summer car furnace' (garage) when I first started. You could see the bubbles popping off the top like schweppes lemonade, blowing all the water out of the airlock and whistling around the seal and airlock as you have mentioned. I even got sprayed with all the replacement water once when I refilled the airlock just to show how much co2 was being created. But I thought 'you beauty - beer....and real fast' but became grossly dissapointed with the end result. I got headaches badly and the taste was chemically strong with a burning alcohol taste. Lots stronger in alcohol content than you'd think and I felt awful the morning after. I tried to over flavour with some Stones ginger wine or something else in the glass as well and my pride made me drink most of it until I was nearly ill so I ended up dumping a few left over bottles. That said I have found that the use of some cooling, frozen bottles and patience in my case really makes a difference.

Hope this helps.

 

[Brewme]

Some advice passed on to me when I started brewing is that high temps cause the yeasties to just eat like mad and then when the sugars gone they start on each other. So not only may you get a lot of fusel alcohols which equals hangovers, you may also get some bad or off flavours. They would have chowed down on the dextrose in short order. I brew in very hot temperatures (high 30s to 40 deg C) in my garage over summer and using two to four 1.25 litre PET ice bottles changed as required (sometimes daily in the early part of fermentation down to every few days later on) I can keep ale down to about 20 - 22 deg c easily. I stay right away from lager yeasts in summer - thats my winter thing in the garage with no cooling and down to a constant comfortable 9-12 deg C.

I had them almost boiling out there in the 'summer car furnace' (garage) when I first started. You could see the bubbles popping off the top like schweppes lemonade, blowing all the water out of the airlock and whistling around the seal and airlock as you have mentioned. I even got sprayed with all the replacement water once when I refilled the airlock just to show how much co2 was being created. But I thought 'you beauty - beer....and real fast' but became grossly dissapointed with the end result. I got headaches badly and the taste was chemically strong with a burning alcohol taste. Lots stronger in alcohol content than you'd think and I felt awful the morning after. I tried to over flavour with some Stones ginger wine or something else in the glass as well and my pride made me drink most of it until I was nearly ill so I ended up dumping a few left over bottles. That said I have found that the use of some cooling, frozen bottles and patience in my case really makes a difference.

Hope this helps.

Hi,

Do you put the PET ice bottles around the carboy or put them into the brew?

Cheers

 

[Brewlord]

Hi,

Do you put the PET ice bottles around the carboy or put them into the brew?

Cheers

Brewme,

Sorry should have made that a bit clearer. Keep that lid closed mate. Just place them around the fermenter with a few towels or old sheets etc to hold them in place. Check / change as required every day or so. Some guys have bunged ice directly into the fermenter or left it on the lid but you risk adding nasties so I try and preserve the integrity of the fermenter - once the lid's on it stays on.

A few guys also get the 100 can coolers that you can get from k-mart or target (blankets and towels work for me). Consider it basically a 'fermenter sleeping bag which fits nicely around the fermenter with room for ice bottles. Oh yeah, I dont do this but I have heard of people adding salt to the ice bottles to lower the freezing point so they will last longer.

Easy and effective I reckon from my experience.

 

[Brewing_Brad]

Thanks for the great tips, Brewlord!

 

[Brewlord]

Thanks for the great tips, Brewlord!

No probs Brad - happy to give back - got heaps of good stuff from this forum over the years. Home brewing Rocks!!!

 

[Brewlord]

Thanks for the great tips, Brewlord!

Oh yeah, out of curiosity, whats the translation of the your signature block?

 

[Bubba]

Brewme,

Sorry should have made that a bit clearer. Keep that lid closed mate. Just place them around the fermenter with a few towels or old sheets etc to hold them in place. Check / change as required every day or so. Some guys have bunged ice directly into the fermenter or left it on the lid but you risk adding nasties so I try and preserve the integrity of the fermenter - once the lid's on it stays on.

A few guys also get the 100 can coolers that you can get from k-mart or target (blankets and towels work for me). Consider it basically a 'fermenter sleeping bag which fits nicely around the fermenter with room for ice bottles. Oh yeah, I dont do this but I have heard of people adding salt to the ice bottles to lower the freezing point so they will last longer.

Easy and effective I reckon from my experience.

+1.
I do the same with 750ml PET in summer, I always keep 12 in the freezer frozen solid, and I surround my fermenter with 6 of these in the summer, and wrap in towels and blankets for the day.

When I get home in the evening I take the 6 thawed ones, put them back in the freezer and replace with 4 frozen ones for overnight.

In the morning the 6 from the previous day are frozen again.

I can keep to 20-22 degrees most of the summer, with occasional spikes but it seems to work fine.

And I havent tried salting the water either, but hear it works fine...so does sitting your fermenter in a shallow tub of water and adding your ice bottles to that to drop the temp as well.

 

[Brewing_Brad]

Oh yeah, out of curiosity, whats the translation of the your signature block?

"Reinheitsgebot oder nicht, solange es Bier gibt, werde ich immer schn sein."
Purity Law or not, as long as there is beer, I will always be beautiful.

"La Bire me ralentit. C'est pas grave, j'ai le temps!"
Beer slows me down. But that's ok, I have time.

 

[Brewlord]

+1.
I do the same with 750ml PET in summer, I always keep 12 in the freezer frozen solid, and I surround my fermenter with 6 of these in the summer, and wrap in towels and blankets for the day.

When I get home in the evening I take the 6 thawed ones, put them back in the freezer and replace with 4 frozen ones for overnight.

In the morning the 6 from the previous day are frozen again.

I can keep to 20-22 degrees most of the summer, with occasional spikes but it seems to work fine.

And I havent tried salting the water either, but hear it works fine...so does sitting your fermenter in a shallow tub of water and adding your ice bottles to that to drop the temp as well.

Bubba,

Theres heaps of ways to keep it cool. The ice bath has been mentioned on this forum before. I guess hot air rises, so cool the bottom and the heat comes off the top. Plus you would be cooling a big surface area at once which is good but the only negative would be water around your tap which may be come a point of ingress for bugs but probably unlikely with more of a problem being mould growing on a wet tap once you take it out of the bath on a hot day.

 

[Brewlord]

"Reinheitsgebot oder nicht, solange es Bier gibt, werde ich immer schn sein."
Purity Law or not, as long as there is beer, I will always be beautiful.

"La Bire me ralentit. C'est pas grave, j'ai le temps!"
Beer slows me down. But that's ok, I have time.

Brad, gotta say that the german and french words seem more sophisticated but the translation is more practical !! Very much along the lines of that movie quote 'The ox is slow but the earth is willing to wait'.

 

[RobH]

...the only negative would be water around your tap which may be come a point of ingress for bugs but probably unlikely with more of a problem being mould growing on a wet tap once you take it out of the bath on a hot day.

I imagine you could probbly add some idophor to the water that your fermenter is sitting in to make sure there are no bugs in the water ... have never done this but it sounds logical.

 

[Brewing_Brad]

Brad, gotta say that the german and french words seem more sophisticated but the translation is more practical !! Very much along the lines of that movie quote 'The ox is slow but the earth is willing to wait'.

They were t-shirts slogans I saw and thought were great - but now that you've queried me on it, it does make me sound a bit of a toss having them as a signiture that no one can understand...new signiture coming up.

 

[Brewlord]

I imagine you could probbly add some idophor to the water that your fermenter is sitting in to make sure there are no bugs in the water ... have never done this but it sounds logical.

You bet - why not. The simplest things always seem to work.

 

[Brewlord]

They were t-shirts slogans I saw and thought were great - but now that you've queried me on it, it does make me sound a bit of a toss having them as a signiture that no one can understand...new signiture coming up.

I wasnt thinking that. I figured it was something quirky as you seem to find a lot in this forum I reckon its pretty cool and relevent. Got lots of meaning on here I reckon.