Novice question: wherry stuck at 26 degrees in FV

[twoshots]

Sorry it's one of those silly first time brewer questions...

I'm currently brewing my first attempt, a Woodforde's Wherry, but it seems to be stuck at what I gather is much too high a temperature of 26 degrees. It's in probably the coldest (haha!) place in the house and now I'm starting to worry about my poor brew! I'm keen not to get the 'bubblegum' flavour people talk of.

It's only been going for 24 hours and I haven't gone to the extent of rapping in a wet towel with a fan on it yet. Is it that critical to get it down?

It's got a good foam layer and brown scum on the underside of the FV lid (which is a plastic HomeBrewOnline 'bucket'). So I guess it off to a reasonable start, but then it would be if it's sitting at a slightly high temp.

I lurked around the place looking for info and recommendations before I took the plunge and found loads of info. But I'm a bit lost as to the amount of effort I should put in to getting this bucket of magic down to recommended 18-20 degrees.

Thanks for any advice!
An Over-worried Novice...

 

[nixhaz]

I'd go for the wet towel treatment if I were you.. but try not to worry too much! From what I've been told, 22 is ok. If you have a cement floor to park it on that might help too :)

 

[calumscott]

Yup, concrete floors are good, they strip heat brilliantly.

The evaporation from a wet towel will also work - better yet is to stand it in one of those plastic underbed boxes and put a wet t-shirt over it then fill the box up so the t-shirt is in the water. It should wick water up the side which then evaporates and cools the bucket... :thumb:

 

[twoshots]

No bare concrete floor unfortunately. Wrapped it in a cold wet towel for now.

Hopefully the weather will cool down a little here tomorrow.

 

[twoshots]

So...the wet towel got the temp down to 24 degrees overnight. Then a cool day with the windows open dropped the temps to 22 degrees and later 20-22 degrees where it has sat since. That still means it was sat at too high a temp for nearly 48 hours.

I had a peep at my brew last night. Althought the airlock doesn't seem to be working I was happy it was fermenting for the first 3 days as the lid on the bucket seems to have slightly bowed and it released some gas when the edge of the lid was lifted.

The krausen has completely died down and the smell of the brew is beery but slightly sweet. The underside of the lid covered in brown gunk. I wonder if the smell indicates unfermented sugar or esters from pitching the yeast at too high a temp? I wonder if it has completed fermenting due to the high temp or whether the yeast has given up after being over-worked.

So should I leave it the hell alone or test the gravity? Lifting the lid half an inch to have a peak seems OK but taking the top off and dropping a tube in to get a test sample seems OTT if I'm going to leave it till the weekend. :hmm:

Any advice for a novice?
Cheers
An Over-worried Novice...

 

[Cononthebarber]

If I were you I'd leave it alone for a full week, monitor the temps if you want to and try and keep it around the 20-24c mark. The more you mess with it the more chance you have of infections. After the week test the gravity and then two days later test again if they are the same then its ready. Are you going to bottle or keg it?

 

[twoshots]

Keg (aka cheap plastic pressure barrel!). I haven't managed to collect enough bottles as yet, but I'm working on it...

I definately need to educate my nose, more brewing will do that no doubt, and my ham-fisted process for sanitizing and brewing in a cramped kitchen needs some ironing out. Good fun though.

I hope this first attempt turns out good enough to be discussed outside of an anonymous forum... :

 

[Hollow Legs]

in my opinion the temps you describe are not ideal but are also not to be concerned about, I agree with conan that you should just leave it alone for a week or so(in total) and test it a couple of times for consistency with your hydrometer.

I have a Wherry on the go at the moment and it has been temp controlled at 20degC for 9 days and the taste is great(6th wherry to date) and I will be bottling it at the weekend.

good luck, I've never brewed a bad wherry yet.

 

[Cononthebarber]

I'm sure it will be fine don't panic and be patient :)

You should have a tasty brew in a few weeks, the keg will do the trick but don't over carbonate it, 80-100g of priming sugar will be plenty. I've made that mistake before which led to leaked beer all over the floor and a very unhappy SWMBO!!! :lol:

 

[twoshots]

Looking forward to it already!

I was going to go for 80-85g brewing sugar to prime as I'm more of a warm, flat beer drinker :drink:

Thanks for the reassurance :thumb:

 

[mattrickl06]

Might be a silly question but would it be possible to chuck some ice cubes into the FV using frozen boiled water?

okay it would water down the beer a little but would also bring the temps down

 

[graysalchemy]

Might be a silly question but would it be possible to chuck some ice cubes into the FV using frozen boiled water?

okay it would water down the beer a little but would also bring the temps down

No the amount you would need would just dilute the beer.

Wet Towels as per the advice above and concrete floors are the best way if you don't have any method of refrigeration :thumb:

 

[twoshots]

I thought about sticking it in the bath with cold water but my daughter has a bath everynight and that would be a step to far with SWMBO.

 

[graysalchemy]

A tub of water wet towel and the addition of a fan will make a lot of difference. :thumb:

 

[ECLIPSE]

I use 1 of those large flexible plastic trub buckets. I place the fermentation bucket in there,fill with water and then use ice packs which I switch every 12 hrs. Keeps the temp of the beer at a constant 20c

 

[twoshots]

Took a hydrometer reading last night, a pleasantly surprising 1.010. OG was 1.042 (temp corrected 1.044). That should give me around 4.2-4.5% ABV which is almost bang on the advertised strength. I was expecting more like 3.9-4.0% to be honest. I think I'll leave it as long as my patience will allow before transferring to a pressure barrel (i.e. tonight after a couple of beers...!)

Obviously (!) I tasted the sample and it was quite pleasant. Be interesting to see how it changes over time.

There's some what I presume is off-gassing in the FV and smell is quite appealing...