Strong esters with US-05. WTF?

OK, so I know I said I'd be taking some time off here, but this has to do with one of my current in-progress beers, my six-grain cream ale (5.25lb 2-row, 11oz each of rice, corn, rye, wheat, and oats).

It's been 3 weeks since bottling and it's carbed by now. But between bottling and opening it's developed an overwhelming estery flavor (like pears, oranges or peaches). While this is certainly an interesting development, it's not at all what I was shooting for, and I really didn't expect US-05 to throw that kind of flavor profile, especially during bottle conditioning.

I'm attempting to cold crash a few bottles to see if the buoyant yeast is part of the problem. Has anyone else experienced a light beer with a supposedly neutral yeast developing unexpected flavors?

Sounds like it got hot. American Ale can get pretty rowdy if it gets too warm and a light beer won't have anything to hide.

GilaMinumBeer said:

Sounds like it got hot. American Ale can get pretty rowdy if it gets too warm and a light beer won't have anything to hide.

Click to expand...

That was my thought too... to free up the bathroom we moved all the bottles to our laundry room where it gets pretty warm... but I had hoped US-05 would be good to me and the small amount of fermentation wouldn't be an issue

I heat my bottles up to the mid to upper 70's when conditioning, and have never noticed any esters from US-05. You're sure the temp didn't shoot up during the ferment?

bernerbrau said:

That was my thought too... to free up the bathroom we moved all the bottles to our laundry room where it gets pretty warm... but I had hoped US-05 would be good to me and the small amount of fermentation wouldn't be an issue

Click to expand...

I think in BLAM they compared American Ale at Belgian temps and it got really nasty. I wanna say it was Allagash that did it.

smizak said:

I heat my bottles up to the mid to upper 70's when conditioning, and have never noticed any esters from US-05. You're sure the temp didn't shoot up during the ferment?

Click to expand...

It might have gotten up to the 80's in the laundry room. There's the dryer that runs hot, but the water heater is also in there. Also, I control the ferment using the low tech swamp cooler method (in the spare bathtub with water, with an old shirt draped over it for evaporative cooling, and I add ice to the tub every morning). I relocated the fermenter to a closet that stays relatively cool for conditioning, but since there was no active fermentation going on it shouldn't be throwing those kinds of esters at that stage.

I'm gonna have to do a fermentation test on a light (extract) beer. Ferment with temp control, then bottle condition it in various places around the house to see how different locations affect the flavor.

I get slight peach with S-05 - it's one of the reasons why I think it's slightly different than WLP001/WY1056, and why I never use it.

I'm drinking a batch of IPA now that used US-05, where one keg of 10 gal batch is great, and the other has a pronounced banana flavor. I'm quite sure that it didn't get out of the 60's during fermentation.

I normally keg, but there was one time I'd bottled a high gravity beer and added US-05 at bottling to ensure carbonation- at three weeks it had some weird off flavors, it sucked because I made it as a commemorative giveaway for our mass-layoff (self included). I didn't want to give away a faulty beer, so I kept it. in a month or 2, all the off flavors went away, it tasted awesome and I was more than happy to have plenty on hand!

Short story- give it time stored at room/cellar temp for a while, let the yeast clean themselves up and you should have a fine brew.

I am experiencing the same symptom with my barleywine...i tossed in some us-05 at bottling to be sure it would carb and now its got a fruity flavor added to it. This sucks because the sample i took when i bottled was awesome. Im really hoping it will fix itself with some age, as it is very green yet.

bernerbrau said:

It might have gotten up to the 80's in the laundry room. There's the dryer that runs hot, but the water heater is also in there.

Click to expand...

You can pick up one of those indoor / outdoor thermometers pretty cheap. Most of them will record the max / min temperatures reached. Tape the remote probe to the side of your fermenter and you'll be able to see the difference between the ambient and wort temperature. You'll also know the highest the temperature reached in the room and carboy during fermentation.

bernerbrau said:

It's been 3 weeks since bottling and it's carbed by now. But between bottling and opening it's developed an overwhelming estery flavor (like pears, oranges or peaches). While this is certainly an interesting development, it's not at all what I was shooting for, and I really didn't expect US-05 to throw that kind of flavor profile, especially during bottle conditioning.

Click to expand...

Which is why I don't use dried yeast. Temperature control of
the fermentation is essential for controlling off flavors, but even
with temperature control, beers with no dark grains in them to
hide the flavors had off-flavors in them using dried yeast, I assume
due to the long lag time before the yeast reaches it high
point of growth.
Jim

The Safale info sheet recommends fermenting between 59-75F:
http://www.fermentis.com/FO/pdf/HB/EN/Safale_US-05_HB.pdf

Jim

There is a slight peach ester to US-05 at higher temps. 80 is high for anything, really. Just belgians toss esters that you want at 80.

YES! I'm happy to see I'm not the only one with this problem.

I used US-05 in a batch of Centennial Blonde. First of all, I brew this recipe all the time. I love it. Over the summer/fall I made 3 batches, and they fermented at 71*, 70* and 65*. They turned out clean and delicious. The batch I have the problem with was made on Dec. 16th and fermented at 68*, then kegged.

Anyway - I pulled a sample the other day and I thought "CRAP did I throw in a Belgian yeast by accident???" It's that spicy.

I don't know what's going on...

Subscribed. I use Safale US-05 all the time (for about the past year or so) and have not had any off flavors as of yet. I ferment at 62-65 ambient in a deep freezer with a temp control unit and a small computer fan blowing in it 24-7.

I am about to brew a wheat beer with US005 and I am actually hoping to get a little ester out of it, so shoot for mid 70's for a medium level of esters? Using Amarillo and Sorachi, and aiming for sort of a fruit salad affect.

Don't get me wrong - I use US05 for many of the beer I make, and this is the first time it's come out like this. It's usually pretty clean tasting. I wouldn't really use it in a wheat...

PseudoChef said:

I get slight peach with S-05 - it's one of the reasons why I think it's slightly different than WLP001/WY1056, and why I never use it.

Click to expand...

Yup. I first heard this from an episode of Brew Network. Jamil said he got peach from US-05 and advised against it in favor of 1056 or WLP001. Ever since I heard that I can pick it out of my 05 beers. I kinda wish I wouldn't have heard that in a way. Ignorance is bliss sometimes. I can pick out the peach at varying degrees with my beers, and have found a trend that shows higher temps throws more peach. Looks like I'm sticking with WLP001 from now on.

OK, it's science time.

I just bought 4 pounds of extra light DME, and I have extra hops in the freezer, so I'm going to do a split 5 gallon batch of light beer, ferment half with 1056 and half with US-05, and check the difference.

I figure I'll also bottle condition in different locations around the house to control for that factor as well.

Anything else I should control for?

jmo88 said:

Yup. I first heard this from an episode of Brew Network. Jamil said he got peach from US-05 and advised against it in favor of 1056 or WLP001. Ever since I heard that I can pick it out of my 05 beers. I kinda wish I wouldn't have heard that in a way. Ignorance is bliss sometimes. I can pick out the peach at varying degrees with my beers, and have found a trend that shows higher temps throws more peach. Looks like I'm sticking with WLP001 from now on.

Click to expand...

Almost exactly the same boat, dude. I never had a problem with it until I took a Brown Ale to a brew club meeting and 2 different guys picked out the ester. I fermented the beer at 62!! I did pick up a pack the other day though, along with some 001 to do a side by side to really try to prove it to myself.

I had that happen to my first lager. I have been lagering it now for over six months and it is getting better by the week, should be ready to crack at the end of January. It was supposed to be similar to Pilsener Urquell or something, which is aged six months in lagering tanks. I’m keeping my fingers crossed.

i just tried a sample of version 3 cream ale. i've done it twice before with us-05 and maybe a SLIGHT hint of the peach ester... i decided to try and clean it up even more by lowering the temp, fermented it right at 58-59 for about 10 days, then raised it up to 65 just to get it to finish dry. i think i made a mistake fermenting it too cool, it tastes like peach tea with some other weird flavors in there... i picked up coconut. of course it is green as hell still, but normally i can't taste esters this pronounced in this beer, even in the early stage. hopefully some lagering will help it along... or i can just tell people it's a peach cream ale.

Strange...I use US-05 almost exclusively and have never noticed this. I tried three of my beers last night with a friend during the Superbowl and neither of us could pick up any peach.

My estery experience with US05 resulted more in banana than peach. What is quite interesting in relation to your recent experience is that mine was also related to too-cool fermentation I think. I ferment in my basement, which during summer is 65,. The banana beer was fermented in November so it was a lot cooler. Since that batch I got the stick on thermometers and keep a bit of heat on.

I didn't get any esters (at least to my still fairly ignorant palate) out of my beers brewed during the summer.

Teacher said:

Strange...I use US-05 almost exclusively and have never noticed this. I tried three of my beers last night with a friend during the Superbowl and neither of us could pick up any peach.

Click to expand...

Same here Teach, I was just reading the above post post thinking the same thing. I ferment at AMBIENT temps in my deep freezer at 64-68. Seems to kick on at 68 and off at 64. The last 3 beers I have racked to a secondary have been 66-67 in liquid temps.

carp said:

My estery experience with US05 resulted more in banana than peach. What is quite interesting in relation to your recent experience is that mine was also related to too-cool fermentation I think. I ferment in my basement, which during summer is 65,. The banana beer was fermented in November so it was a lot cooler. Since that batch I got the stick on thermometers and keep a bit of heat on.

I didn't get any esters (at least to my still fairly ignorant palate) out of my beers brewed during the summer.

Click to expand...

you know, my initial thought was coconut when i sampled it, so maybe that is some weird mix of peach and banana... i'll see if it mellows out.

Mine did mellow out quite a bit, by the time it was probably 3 months old. It was an IPA, OG about 1.065 I think (to lazy to look it up in BTP).

well, chalk another misleading assumption up to tasting beer too early. this beer has completely changed over the course of the last week. tastes like a lager now, very little ester character, so it appears the low fermentation around 58 gave me exactly what i wanted.

Sometimes I wonder if too cool a fermentation temperature will lead to certain ester precursors not being absorbed/metabolized by the yeast, leading to a certain aroma characteristic. I'm very sensitive to esters, Nottingham to me is like a Hefeweizen yeast to most other people. I have a VERY hard time detecting esters in US-05, and I always ferment it at 67-68F. I've entered a lot of those beers into comps as well and the judges always comment on how clean the fermentation is.

I popped my US-05/1056 experiment beer earlier this week.

The 1056 batch has almost no flavor at all. Tastes like seltzer. I'll send this one off to in-laws who like flavorless beer.

The US-05 batch has exactly the same defect as my six grain cream ale - the peachy/apply esters.

Not only that, I discovered that an extremely low-gravity beer (1.030) will carbonate much faster than a higher gravity (1.050-1.070) beer. This sucker finished off after 14 days in the bottle.

Since they're theoretically the same strain, I want to guess that pitching rates are the issue?

bernerbrau said:

Since they're theoretically the same strain, I want to guess that pitching rates are the issue?

Click to expand...

I think it's more related to the effects of the drying process. I would assume it's an inherent aspect of US-05. If you under/over pitched 1056, I doubt you would find any peach.

Just tapped a batch of wheat beer that I made with US-05 and I"m not sure if it's just the yeast or the combination of the hops, but it tastes like a pina colada. Basic wheat beer recipe with 1 oz Amarillo, 1oz Sorachi Ace and .25oz or so Sweet Orange Peel. It's not bad, but never expected that kind of character out of it, wish I had the patience to keep it till summer weather.
On the other hand I did a brown ale with Cluster and Warrior and US-05 and I didn't detect any fruit tones on that one, both were fermented high 60's/low70's.

jmo88 said:

I think it's more related to the effects of the drying process. I would assume it's an inherent aspect of US-05. If you under/over pitched 1056, I doubt you would find any peach.

Click to expand...

In that case, I'm probably gonna re-brew my 6-grain cream ale with 1056.

Yeah, thread resurrection here but I want to share my experience with us-05. The temps of the wort (fermometer) got down to 58 during a pale ale in December. My temp control is single stage cooling as heating is almost never needed here. Oops. This beer is currently an ester fest and I would swear that it has strawberries in it somewhere. It is currently kegged, carbonated, and taking a long nap before I touch it again. But I learned to brew lagers in the winter and will be using wlp001 instead the rest of the year. (The cost difference is negligible at LHBS) If you use 05 don't let it get cold either!