Overheated ferment

[oddjob5]

Hi all,

I have had a go at brewing the coopers stout kit + 1.1kg of DME. I started it on saturday morning with a gravity of 1040. It had a violent ferment and now has stopped bubbling at just over 1000 . I will give it a few more days to finish. Will the quick ferment in this heat have caused bad flavorings? Is there anything i can do to recover?

Thank for any advice.

 

[chuffer]

From what I've read in here, the first 72 hrs are the most critical so you may have missed the boat. Not sure what the effect on a stout would be though, you never know it might be a pleasant surprise!

 

[huwb]

Have a similar concern myself, kicked off a brewferm kit last week racked to secondary tonite. Worried its gonna have off tastes cos of the temp last few days :-( think only time will tell ?

 

[celsius]

I think I read on here that extra time in the FV will allow the yeast to "eat" everything in the bin! Thus clearing any unwanted, tasted, particles etc. I have had similar this week with the same brew.

Im sure someone will be along to give the the full SP.

Cheers

 

[IainM]

Yup, I'm fully expecting my Mosaic, Nugget and Maris Otter brew to be ruined by the recent weather.

 

[cheapbrew]

just let them do their thing business as normal, it may not be quite the same as the recipe you brewed in winter temps but it aint gonna be ruined, and it will be beer and you will drink it anyway.

 

[IainM]

just let them do their thing business as normal, it may not be quite the same as the recipe you brewed in winter temps but it aint gonna be ruined, and it will be beer and you will drink it anyway.

Hmmmm... my brew with Belgian yeast at 26C was too hot, and I could really taste it. This one is suppose to be a neutral beer, and from 24h post-pitch onwards it has been at 28-30C where the fv is. My expectation is pretty low. At least this way any surprises will be positive.

 

[chuffer]

Seems like a few people here with suspected ruined brews. As discussed in the other thread "this weather", in lieu of a brew fridge, I've managed to make do by placing my FV in a plastic trug (that I usually use to carry washing in), quarter filled with water, kept cool by occasionally adding ice cubes or ice packs on rotation

 

[JapanBrew]

Chuffer, that'll do it. Here in Japan it's been over 35 degrees now for the past month. Humidity at 85%. I made a makeshift fermentation chamber but even the ambient heat around the fridge keeps the pump on and can only get the chamber down to 21. On the edge of what ale yeasts like.

 

[krispn]

Yup I'm in the same position that I brwed Monday morning right after night shift - I'd the day all planned - and oe the weather has been sitting as high as 28 degrees. Got the carboy in a brew bucket with cold water and a wet tee-shirt draper around it hopefully keeping some level of control over temp but I'm expecting big bad flavours.

I've been brewing for a friends house move at the end of August so I'll know in about 6 weeks how it went - I've a 1 gal stout and ESB type ale. Fingers crossed!!

 

[ericmark]

Year one I continued to brew through the year (2013) there was a marked reduction in quality for summer brews, I found by Christmas the poor brews had improved, but not as good as those brewed in Autumn, Winter and Spring, so I gave up summer brewing. However this year I was short on stock so for the first time started using the refrigeration offered by my old fridge/freezer.

However it seems all cooling goes to freezer, on switch on it must cool freezer first, the freezer however is too low to syphon from so method has been start in freezer with a STC-1000 holding the temperature down, then after first 10 days move to fridge. Until yesterday that was working fine, transferring (2nd July) at 18.5°C it was warming up but very slowly, by 19th July it was at 21.6°C start of day and finished at 22.5°C I had expected it to cool down over night again, however on 20th it was 23.3°C and over night it has only cooled to 23.2°C this morning opened fridge and garage door but too late. Got it down a bit before it started to warm up, but can't really leave door open in case the demijohn in freezer warms up and triggers the cooling if door is open then it would mess up things.

Since brew started on the 22nd June it is now really ready to bottle so not too bad, at this stage it is unlikely to matter if it warms up, however if I can't keep a near finished brew temperature down there is no hope with a fresh brew. It is all well and good talking about adding ice, but to get ice means house hold freezer has to work overtime to make it in the first place. It has enough work to do keeping house hold goods cold without using it to keep a fermentor cold as well. The fridge/freezer used for brewing is connected to an energy meter, one day keeping the freezer to 19.5~20°C used 0.10 kWh that means about 1.5 hours running through the day to keep beer cold, asking the house hold freezer to run an extra 1.5 hours on top of it's normal run time is really going to put a strain on it. And that is with a orange brandy liquor in the freezer compartment which is only 1 gallon and nearing end of brewing stage.

On the 22nd June when I started the beer that is now in fridge it used 0.20 kWh to keep it cool that's a lot of power to ask the house hold freezer to do on top of normal duty. I learnt in first year, the options are simple, get a brewing fridge, or don't brew in the summer. Whole idea of the energy meter was to see how feasible it would be to cool say a 2 litre milk bottle then place it in with the fermentor should the fridge/freezer I am using fail. The results have shown it is not really an option.

After first 10 days putting a body warmer on fermentor during the day and taking it off at night could keep it reasonably cool, but fermenting releases too much heat in early stages, it's not just keeping it cool, you need to remove heat, so room needs to be around 18°C to keep fermentor at 20°C, OK this is average temperature, but my office where I am writing this is at 25.1°C at 7:23 am so even with overnight cooling hard to get it cool enough.

 

[chub1]

Have a 6 ltr Banks's bitter clone on the go, been up to +28c for 2 days, shifted it to downstairs bathroom on tiled floor and now at 24c, probably mullered but will just leave it alone for some extra time once it's finished and see how it comes out!

 

[Bar-Steward]

My Festival Old Suffolk was going nicely at 22 C until Tuesday when it shot up to 28 on the fv thermometer (but it was 31/32 outside so having doors open and wind blowing didn't help).

I am hoping that the four and a half days it had at 23 C before that may have meant most fermentation had completed before the hot day, and it is back to 23/24 now.

I really don't want 23 litres of beer with a strange taste. I must begin to take more notice of weather forecasts.

 

[Cwrw666]

I'm currently drinking an AG smokey treacle stout which is absolutely delicious. No off flavours at all despite the fact that the day after pitching it was up to 29c and the krausen had pushed the lid off and I lost about a pints worth of beer with it foaming out everywhere. I cooled it by moving it to a cooler part of the house and then just carried on as normal.

 

[cheshirehomebrew]

It will be interesting to hear from all those on here with potentially ruined summer brews how they turn out in the end

 

[chub1]

Have a 6 ltr Banks's bitter clone on the go, been up to +28c for 2 days, shifted it to downstairs bathroom on tiled floor and now at 24c, probably mullered but will just leave it alone for some extra time once it's finished and see how it comes out!

Well i tested this earlier on and it is at 1.009 after 6 days the expected FG. Had a taste and it was actually ok, colour was very good as well and pretty clear:pray:thank you beer god!.
will leave it alone for another week and re test it again.Phewwww:mrgreen:

 

[Bar-Steward]

Yes, I had a quick test of my Old Suffolk because my brain would not calm down without knowing, and it tasted ok (for something which has only been in the fv for a week). The hop pellets have added a good bitter taste, and I can imagine that the more complex flavours will appear over the weeks ahead.

Phew! I may have got away with it. There are certainly no flavours or smells that I would not expect.

 

[dandanni84]

Moved a wherry from primary to secondary a week ago today. Temp of brew up at 27c today will it be ok?

 

[Slid]

Yes, I had a quick test of my Old Suffolk because my brain would not calm down without knowing, and it tasted ok (for something which has only been in the fv for a week). The hop pellets have added a good bitter taste, and I can imagine that the more complex flavours will appear over the weeks ahead.

Phew! I may have got away with it. There are certainly no flavours or smells that I would not expect.

Essentially, the initial conversion would be completed in 4/5 days and it is during this period that the side-products can be produced at a high fermenting temp. The temp rise won't be helpful on day 5, but is nowhere near as bad as it would have been earlier.

All my beer issues have been from high temp ferments, which make for a quick rush of activity, but a poor initial conversion. This then means that the beer carries on fermenting long after bottling and then either explodes or gives you a gassy, cloudy and acidic tasting horror weeks later.

 

[Bar-Steward]

Oh dear.

My optimism is draining away rapidly....