I just opened my first homebrew this week. A hefeweizen extract. I am very happy with it. There doesn't seem to be any contamination which I was very afraid of.
Here's my question. I live in Illinois and right now it is very hot, around 90-95º everyday. We keep our house around 78º. I've heard that when beer is fermented at too high of temperatures it can have an off banana flavor. I was expecting and got a mild banana flavor from the hefeweizen. But in my next beer, an english mild, I am worried about the fermentation temperature. I really DON'T want any banana flavor in my mild, and I am worried that this may happen. I am planning on using White Labs English Ale yeast which has an optimum temp of 65-69. Does anyone have any suggestions or experience with this? Will it be okay if it ferments at 75-78º?
There are several easy steps you can take to try and bring the fermentation temperature down. You can wrap the fermenter in a wet towel or wet t-shirt and place and place it in front of a fan; you can submerge the fermenter in a bucket or cooler of cold water and add ice or frozen water bottles; you can modify the top of a cooler to allow the air lock to poke through and use frozen water bottles to bring the temp down.
Last summer I used the wet towel method and it worked okay up to about 75deg ambient temp (I would recommend this method to a new brewer). This summer I am using the last method and have been able to maintain lagering temps below 42deg as long as I switch the ice out regularly.
Try one of these as a quick and simple way to keep the temp down as it really will affect the flavor of your beer.
__________________
And now we go AG!
On Tap: Nadda
Primary: Nadda
Planning: Extra Special Bitter
Get a plastic bin...place your fermenter in it...fill it half way with water...refill water bottles and freeze them...switch them out every 12-24 hours.
Get a plastic bin...place your fermenter in it...fill it half way with water...refill water bottles and freeze them...switch them out every 12-24 hours.
Where are you in IL? I'm near the Quad Cities.
I think that is what I'll do, in combination with the wet towel. I might have to consider making a different beer too. Or find a yeast that can tolerate higher temps.
also, look at the link in my sig for a cheap $10 cooler box that uses your central a/c vents to keep the fermenter cool.
__________________ Malkore
Primary: English Mild
On tap: Pale Ale, Lancelot's Wheat, English Brown Ale, Steam Beer, HoovNuts IPA
Bottled: MOAM, Braggot, Raspberry Melomel, Merlot, Apfelwein, Pyment, Sweet mead, Cabernet
Gal in 2009: 27, Gal in 2010: 34, Gal in 2011: 13, Gal in 2012: 10
On the advice you folks gave me and some other stuff I've read, I put together this cheap cooling system. It's a $5 plastic box. I filled it half-full of water, put the fermenter in and dropped in giant chunks of ice. It seems to be holding at around 70º, which is great. That's a whole lot better than 78º.
I'm really hoping that this works because a friend and I drank several beers of my first batch last night, and I woke up with an aweful headache. I think that it might have been caused by lots of fusel alcohols due to the high fermentation temp.
First Brew Temp and Banana Flavor - What's Next?
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