Headache

[Chadders]

Hi all I bottled a brew of woodfords admirals reserve around six weeks ago i tried one a few days ago and it was great! quite clear good head and good carbonation problem was having just one the morning after I had a mild headache I've had a few more since with the same out come. I followed the instructions except I left it in the bucket for 10 days 5 days over after it had finished then bottled adding 1 half teaspoon of Brewing sugar
Could I have done anything wrong? the final grav came out at around 5% as it should be

 

[JamesMcS]

That's a weird one - what was the fermentation temp? Yeasts produce different chemicals depending on the temperature they're living in, and I read that some of them may be responsible for hangovers... Interesting

 

[Cambrinus]

Hi,

What temperature did you ferment at?
If you ferment too warm, over 25 C, fusel alcohol can be produced. This alcohol gives you hangovers.

More here:
http://www.howtobrew.com/section4/chapter21-2.html

-C

 

[blackdog64]

Some people blame ordinary household sugar (Sucrose) for hangovers, did this brew use this? (Brewers use a massive range of invert sugars etc).

 

[Chadders]

It never went over 22c and I used dextrose there is no hangover feeling just a bit of a headache

 

[Fil]

you may find with a few more weeks in the bottle the effect will stop?

Meanwhile pre empt it with a pint of water and a paracetamol/asprin/neurofen/vitimin placeabo before bed..:drunk:

Sounds like you have all the bases covered with the brewing temps and sugar additions.

when in doubt about the quality of a brew for any reason i just let it sit a lil longer to mature a bit more, and while ive brewed a few pints that have made me 'hmmm' after a few weeks of maturing, when left for longer none have failed to please ( bar the very very sweet coopers ginger beer....)

 

[Slid]

I had some issues with a cider brew that gave me the same headache but worse.

I would suggest moving your bottles back into the warm for a couple of weeks so that any by-products get fermented down to ethanol. Sincerely suggest you don't drink more than one at a time until it's sorted. The yeast will slowly convert any by-product, but it will happen much faster in the warm than in the cold.

If your bottles have screw tops, venting a little gas was something else I had to do.