Yukky Ale?

[Ben Tipungwuti]

Hi and I'm a 6 brew 'veteran' who thought he knew everything until tasting this summers first ale!!!
Started off last summer with ales and they were yuk! Soapy!
Brewed 4 lagers in winter and they turned out great - used Xtract lager from country brewer - v happy - bitter finish and clean taste. Used same brand Pale Ale with same sanitation and process (thought this was the problem before with ales) and they've turned out the same. Been reading John Palmer's 'How to Brew' and he says to cool wort any way you can and pitch ale yeast at 21-24 degrees or risk the wrong sugars being released and not enough time for yeast to consume. I pitched yeast at 29 degrees and it cooled over a day to 23 with this yukky ale. Is this the problem? Anybody have the same problem with ales as opposed to lagers? Any thoughts or tips on getting my ales as crisp as my lagers?
Please be gentle...

 

[Jye]

Hi Ben and welcome to AHB :beer:

Sounds like your problems is to do with fermentation temperature, 23C is still to high and pitching the yeast at 29 is just asking for trouble. For an ale try to pitch the yeast and ferment at around 18-20C, a lot of us use a cooler with ice blocks or a fridge with temp control to maintain this temp.

Your lagers may have been turning out better because the fermentation temp was much lower, ideally 10-12C.

Also have a read of this article.

 

[Ben Tipungwuti]

Awesome, I thought that may be the key - what do you think about getting an old, unused bar fridge and keeping the fermentor in this under the house. I live in a cooler mountain climate outside sydney so would a combination of these factors keep my ale temps below 20 degrees? Anyone with some knowhow?

 

[Jye]

Ben, a fridge is a great idea, the next step is to grab a FridgeMate (there are a few threads about these) to control the temp of the fridge.

Once you have temp control and sanitation under control you are 90% of the way to making great beer.

 

[Ben Tipungwuti]

Thanks Jye. On the lookout for these things now. Would a broken bar fridge ie. glorified esky keep the temp below 20 you think? Under the house?

 

[Jye]

Most likely not since the fermentation process generates heat. The surrounding temp actually needs to be a couple of degrees below the ideal fermentation temp.

 

[winkle]

If you want to go down that path, get a few 2 litre coke PET bottles. Freeze them and put 2 a day in with the fermenter, its what I do while waiting for a mate to fix my all-fridge (been a year now <_< ). This should keep the temperature down around 18-20 C during summer which is ok for ales and wheats.
A second-hand fridge and a fridgemate is a better and more versitile option, if I weren't so lazy I'd have done that by now.