Warm Start For A Wheat

[ploto]

Put down my fourth kit brew today, a slight mishap resulted in the wort ending up a 32C prior to pitching the yeast, however I was able to cool it down over a few hours.

1 x Coopers Wheat Beer 1.7kg
1 x Morgans Wheat Malt Extract 1.5kg
WB-06

Yeast was re-hydrated in half a cup of warm water covered with cling wrap, 10 mins later it looked like a hot air balloon so it was certainly viable.

However it was not until the fermenter was filled to 20l that I realised the hot tap was on and had been mixing with the cold as well and the resulting temp was 32C. Given the yeast was raring to go and at about the same temp as the wort I decided to pitch it in rather than leave it any longer while I tried to cool it dow.

After about 2 hours I was able to get the temp down to 22C and it is now sitting on 20C and stable at that, which is where I hope to keep it for the rest of the ferment.

So my question is how much damage has the initial few hours of being too hot done? Will the yeast have thrown off huge amounts of funny flavours? Or will the yeast go back to sleep? And was there anything I should have done differently after discovering the wort was too warm?

I'm hoping it will turn out ok as it's the first wheat beer I've tried my hand at and was aiming to get a baseline kit brew done before hopping plain extracts & liquid yeasts.

 

[manticle]

2 hours? Yeast is probably still too busy multiplying to make too many bad things. That said it's better for the yeast to be pitched slightly lower than intended ferment temp.

Brewing is a learning curve as much as anything. Impressed you got the wort down that much that quick, learn for next time.

 

[ploto]

That's what I'm hoping, that the yeast hadn't got too much of a start in the first few hours. Thanks for your prompt reply btw.

Fortunately I had been planning this brew for a week and have been loading the freezer full of water filled milk & soft drink bottles, surprisingly I managed to cram a total of 9 in there before the missus started giving me dirty looks!

My standard cooling system is a styrofoam box cut in half and placed on either side of the fermenter, each side lined with one big plastic bag and then with two smaller plastic bags holding about 4l each (iodophor mix), which sit pressed up against the fermenter to maximise heat transfer. Into each of these four water bags I place a frozen bottle. My last brew I was able to keep at 22C through the sydney heatwave by adding only one bottle about every 12 hrs.

However to crash cool this brew I put two of the 1l frozen milk bottles directly into the fermenter - well sanitised and allowed to drip dry beforehand. doing this got the temp down from 30 to 22 in about an hour, then I took them out (with a sanitised rubber glove) and the side bags got it down to 20, where it has stayed since. I'm aware of the risks of putting things in and out of the wort but I am fairly confident that everything was clean enough to avoid infection, though time will tell.

So hopefully this will all come good and result in a tasty brew


One other question, do wheat beers benefit from extended fermentation? I have been leaving my previous brews 10 - 12 days before bottling but I'm happy to leave it for 2 weeks or even longer if it will help.

 

[manticle]

Forget weeks. Go by gravity. Leave the brew a few days after FG to let the yeast tidy up a bit. Some brews take 2-3 weeks for primary ferment, others 5 days. Time means nothing to FG, only gravity means anything.

However due to low hopping rates and a reliance on yeast in suspension for distinctive flavour, hefes are better younger than older so your conditioning time may be shorter depending on whether you like the flavours. Let it ferment right out first though.

 

[ploto]

This morning the temp is sitting on 20 and krausen is starting to form so it looks like beer is on the way!

I understand the importance of relying on the FG to determine when the fermentation is done. When I say I leave it 10 days or so I mean I don't bother checking SG until about that point and then again a couple of days later to confirm, at which point I bottle. I guess what I meant to ask is do wheat beers typically taker longer to reach FG?

The OG as measured after pitching the yeast (yes I know I should have checked it before) was 1.040 @ 32C, which by my estimated correction should be about 1.038 or thereabouts, does that sound right? Anyway I'm not too fussed what the alcohol ends up at, I'm in this for the fun of it. And the beer.

I must admit that the shorter bottle conditioning time for this style did have something of an influence on choosing to do it for this batch, as I have all but finished my first brew and the second is still a week or two off. Damn this having to wait! looks like I'm off to the bottlo again... for research purposes, of course!

 

[chadjaja]

The OG as measured after pitching the yeast (yes I know I should have checked it before) was 1.040 @ 32C, which by my estimated correction should be about 1.038 or thereabouts, does that sound right? Anyway I'm not too fussed what the alcohol ends up at, I'm in this for the fun of it. And the beer.

Actually the OG is scaled the other way, it was more like 1043. Your hydrometer should be calibrated to 20 degrees. You should end up with a beer in the range of 4.5% or so.

 

[Pennywise]

This is a good table to use for correcting hydrometer temps, from How To Brew

My hydrometer is calibrated to 15.6 degrees, it's a US one so it's calibrated in fahrenheit (something like 60F, which is just under 16 degrees C), I'm guessing the ones calibrated to 20C are Aussie made ones? Either way, best to make sure which you have so you can get a more accurate reading. But as Chadjaja points out, the hotter the wort is the less viscosity it has, so you need to scale up to account

 

[manticle]

2 hours? Yeast is probably still too busy multiplying to make too many bad things.

I should clarify this fairly badly worded statement. When the yeast is multiplying is when it throws out a lot of the funky flavours and hot times early are the worst times. I just don't imgine that two hours moving from 35 to 22 would be enough time to make it all bad - more like 2 days. Possibly your cooling technique is more likely to adversely affect the beer more than the short time at those temps.

Wait and see, don't stress.

Leaving for 10 days once ferment starts, then checking gravity is a good approach. Also watching for visible signs of ferment slowing like krausen dropping etc can be an indication that it's time to whip out the hydrometer.

Good luck with it.

 

[jasonharley]

My current brew is an AG Bavarian Wheat using Wyeast 3056. I have experimented with pitching the liquid yeast (no starter) in 28 deg C aerated wort and then lowering the temperature to 18 deg C over the course of 8 hours. On Day 2 there was no activity but I quickly shook the fermenter and this started the fermenting within 15 minutes. It is Day 5 and it is currently fermenting quite well with a lovely blonde krausen that would bring a tear to any true ABBA fan.

If my 'high risk' experiment succeeds then I can brew and pitch within the same day. So far the 3056 has demonstrated that it is a relatively hardy yeast ... time will tell if the taste stacks up also......

cheers 5 eyes

 

[Ducatiboy stu]

Yeast is very hardy, it can survive temps over 40*c, its just that it works best below 18*c

Basically, the higher the temp, the faster the yeast works, but there is a downside with flavours etc..

Bread yeast works great at 40*c as it works fast, bread dough at 18*c is very slow to get going

 

[ploto]

Possibly your cooling technique is more likely to adversely affect the beer more than the short time at those temps.

Wait and see, don't stress.

That thought was in the back of my mind, but at the time I was more concerned about getting the temp down asap. In hindsight I could have let it drop at a more relaxed rate. Either way, it'll end up as it ends up, so as you say there is no need to worry.

So far the 3056 has demonstrated that it is a relatively hardy yeast ... time will tell if the taste stacks up also......

cheers 5 eyes

I do intend to make another wheat beer down the track using a more interesting liquid yeast, a more forgiving one like that would probably be a good one to start with. I'm looking forward to hearing how yours turns out.


Thanks for all your help guys. I'm still new at this and will be sticking with kits for a while until I get my technique down, but I would like to get into AG one day. Making mistakes along the way and learning from them is half the fun, especially when you get to drink the result!

 

[ploto]

Well it's been fermenting for 11 days now and the SG is 1.009, two days ago it was 1.010 so I will test it again tomorrow. The temp was 20 until a few days ago when it went up to 21 where it still is. The krausen is almost gone, however there is still a steady stream of tiny bubbles rising up from the tap bung hole. The sample in the hydrometer tube is well carbonated and took some time for the head to settle enough that I could take a reading.

I do have a slight worry, in that the hydrometer sample two days ago was sweet with a big hit of cloves. today it tastes a little sharper - certainly nothing unpleasant, but is this anything to be concerned with? Would this more likely be indicative of yeast flavours as a result of the temp increase, or could it be going to vinegar? If I hadn't tasted it previously I would think nothing of it, and maybe it's just my palate at different times of the day. There is no Visual sign of infection and the FV has not been opened since the start. I will see what the SG reading is tomorrow, but is it normal for a beer like this to showing carbonation in the FV at this stage?

 

[jasonharley]

Well it's been fermenting for 11 days now and the SG is 1.009, two days ago it was 1.010 so I will test it again tomorrow. The temp was 20 until a few days ago when it went up to 21 where it still is. The krausen is almost gone, however there is still a steady stream of tiny bubbles rising up from the tap bung hole. The sample in the hydrometer tube is well carbonated and took some time for the head to settle enough that I could take a reading.

I do have a slight worry, in that the hydrometer sample two days ago was sweet with a big hit of cloves. today it tastes a little sharper - certainly nothing unpleasant, but is this anything to be concerned with? Would this more likely be indicative of yeast flavours as a result of the temp increase, or could it be going to vinegar? If I hadn't tasted it previously I would think nothing of it, and maybe it's just my palate at different times of the day. There is no Visual sign of infection and the FV has not been opened since the start. I will see what the SG reading is tomorrow, but is it normal for a beer like this to showing carbonation in the FV at this stage?

I reckon you will be fine, the entrained CO2 will escape slowly.

By the way my experiment in pitching 3056 at 28 deg C in bavarian AG wheat seems to be working ok. After two weeks in the fermenter, i checked the SG ( reading = 1012) and racked it to secondary. The taste is surprisingly good considering it still needs plenty of time to clean up. So the conclusion is that 3056 is quite hardy and forgiving on taste. I am not sure if 3068 would be so forgiving though ... but that is an experiment for another day.

happy 5 eyes

 

[ploto]

Today it's 1.008, so looks like I'll be leaving it for a few days yet. The sample tasted fine, not as sharp as yesterday, but neither was it as sweet as the day before... either way it tastes pretty good for something still in the barrel. Looking forward to this one.

 

[ploto]

I bottled it a couple of days ago after it had settled on 1.007 for a three days.

As an experiment I primed 10 bottles with 2 carb drops, 5 with just one, and the remaining 14 with about 9g of honey (weighed in a syringe). Should be interesting to see how they turn out.

 

[ploto]

well after a week in the bottle it is quite drinkable big kick of cloves on the nose and lips, then goes a bit fruity, in a good way.

I sampled one bottle primed with the carb drops and one with the honey, not much difference in fizzy levels and the honey was only evident on initial sniff & sip, after that it was gone. me likey very much and can't see it lasting too long.