Summer Heat

[Beer Krout]

Hi Guys

Interested in your thoughts and advise on the following.

The summer heat is well and truely here in Melbourne. We've been having a few days of 40+ temperatures, which is unusual.

My last batch brewed was a Hoegaarden Wit that I bottled 3 weeks ago.
I've been eager to drink this during the summer heat, but have had patchy carbonation. Some are well carbonated and others have virtually none.

It occured to me that yeast might have been killed during these heat waves stretches. Is this possible?
I have no aircon in the house and the beer is stored in a corner of the dark spare bedroom. Some days coming in to the house, after work, and it's like an oven.

I recall last summer when i first started brewing. That my early batches were very patchy on carbonation and some never carbonated even after six months.
All my beers made and stored during the cooler months have all carbonated perfectly.

I've decided to re-yeast the left over bottles of Wit with the a few mls of yeast starter for each bottle and recap. Did that on Monday. Have placed them all in the brewing fridge which is sitting at 18 degrees. Hope this works. Any comments?

Another question in the same vein.
I recently drank a bottle of amber brewed using Wyeast 1272. During the first month, it was a fantastic beer. Malty and nutty. I had a bottle since the heat wave and it tasted terrible. I'm not sure how to describe it.
Another APA I brewed with the same yeast was good before, but very ordinary now, also.
Is it possible that yeast dieing from overheating can give off bad flavours? Can I fix this somehow?


Cheers
BK

PS. Anybody got a spare underground lair that i can borrow for beer storage?
"This heat is killing my independent brewery!"

 

[wiggins]

If you've got a pantry in youre place,try moving some of the tinned stuff out of there to make some room for the brews.As i have found,these places don't usually get too hot and are ideal for storing or conditioning beer :chug:

 

[Beer Krout]

Yesterday was another hot one.

I went round the house with a thermometer looking for better potential beer storage spots.
There is virtually no place in the house that is was under 30 yesterday. Except the two fridges.
No place under it too.

At the moment I have two batch 35 longnecks in the brewing fridge huddled around the fermenter at a temp controlled 18 degrees.

Maybe i should be looking into cool rooms or huge eskies. ;-)

 

[wiggins]

Maybe a linen closet in the laundry might work.I don't know the layout of You're house though.Public housing is the pits when it comes to cool spots,unless it is built up on stilts. :blink:

 

[warrenlw63]

BK.

One solution for the interim would be to scavenge some polystyrene fruit boxes. They can be had for nothing around markets. You need only ask and they usually give them away. :beerbang:

Not a perfect solution but they can hold bottles. All you need to do is freeze up some milk cartons of ice and keep them in the box with your bottles. Empty and change the ice at regular intervals. Certainly a better solution than hot room temps.

BTW. The higher than normal heat shouldn't have killed bottle carbonation. Just wait a little longer and they should all carbonate.

Another solution is the "hopefully" one off investment of a couple of additional fridges.

Warren -

 

[TidalPete]

In the past, I've had this problem with patchy carbonation from bottle to bottle & solved it by replacing the worn capper head on the bottling stand. Not saying that this is the problem, but it's worth looking at.

:beer:

 

[Beer Krout]

Wiggins. It's not looking good for the house. Unless it's well insulated. Even this morning the house was 28 deg.

Warrenlw63. Polystyrene fruit boxes sounds like not a bad idea, as you say, for short term. Unfortunately I am heading on an overseas for the month of February.

TidalPete, haven't had capping problems all year, so I suspect it's not an issue. It did come to mind though and was dismissed fairly quickly. Although I do cap with an old homemade capper that I inherited off a flatmate on screwtop longnecks.

Another of my mates was suggesting a storage place when he stores work gear. That is a constant 15 degrees. He reckons it cost him $3 per month for a 1.6m cubed area. If I can find somewhere around here with that price. I would consider it. Although, I'd rather some solution on my own place. Still sounds good for storing stouts and bocks for the winter. ;-)

 

[Beer Krout]

Hi Guys

Just reporting back my notes and a happy ending to those guys who have to make do with the whims of a hot summer.

During January I made three batches of different ales and stored them in a "cool" dark bedroom and then went on hols all of February.

Came back and none were cabonated at all. No question Februrary would have been a hot month after the record temps we had in January.

Anyway. Not giving up.
I managed to get my hands on a spare fridge and a temp controller and created a nice 18 degrees space.

At first I suspected the yeast may have died. So I re-yeast 2 of the batches.Turned the bottles to wake the yeast and left all 3 batches in the fridge for 4 weeks.

Cracked a bottle and nothing, flat.

Last weekend I re-primed all 3 batches.

Last night I cracked a bottle and bingo. We have a carbonated brew.
Will test the other two batches this week. I think I'm going to be pleased.

I'm not sure what happened to the original priming sugars and why it took the addition of more priming sugar to get a carbonation?

In conclusion, from my own experience.
* It's hard to kill yeast.
* Yeast seems to dislike 30+ temps and large temperature swings and shutdown.

 

[hughman666]

is there a chance your bottles are not cleaned out throughly before bottling? greasy bottles may be a culprit

 

[mika]

Beer Krout, know you're situation all too well.
Though my brews go the otherway in the heat and tend to go "POP !"...little too much carbonation.

I've got a bunch of beers in the garage that are all subject to the same temps. Brews that were done back before winter or even early on in winter don't seem to have changed flavour, despite the huge temps. I measured 49deg on one day

Brews that were still conditionng have gone mad and I personally believe that's why they're not tasting as good as I'd hoped. Seems that the brew conditions for several months, after that temp control don't seem to matter a big deal. But for that first 3-4 months, maybe longer, it has a huge effect.

The answer... brew in an ice cave, spend $$$ on buying and running lots of fridges/freezers. Or if you're a tight ar$e, do like me and do lots of brewing now and in winter, then sit back and just drink them in the summer. Besides it's too damn hot to be brewing beer in summer anyway :beer:

 

[Beer Krout]

hughman
Nah ... my bottles are bleached to buggery.
Rinsed with hot water 3 times.
Then re-sanitised with the no-rinse stuff just before bottling.

mika
Total agree with you that the early months of upbringing are the most important.

I've only been brewing for just over a full calendar year. I started in summer and remember these problems when I first began, but though it was more to do with my inexperience and technique. Things got better over autumn,winter and spring and I improved my techniques. So I had dismissed these problems as just in-experience. But What did I know. Summer strikes and it happens again. ;-)
And now I relearn.
<insert your own philsophical quote>

Thanks guys.
Happy Brewing.

BK