hot fermentation on a belgian

Brewed a strong golden mini mash last night. managed to get it in the carboy without power going out from Irene. I used a copper immersion chiller to cool the wort. After 25-30 minutes, the wort was only down to 78 degrees. It was dropping very slowly at that point, making me think my "cold" tapwater isn't that cold. I put it in the carboy, topped it off with about 2.5 more gallons of cold water and pitched a starter (two vials of wlp570 in 2L, decanted) and aerated. after all that, my carboy was still reading 76-78 degrees based on the strip thermometer. I don't have any other real temperature control in my smal apartment so i decided to let it go. It's fermenting like crazy (OG is around 1.085), but i've read a high fermenting temp initially leads to hot alcohol flavors in the finished product.

Anyone know of something i could use in conjunction with a wort chiller to cool down the wort faster? and is there anyway to negate/hide/clean up the hot alcohols i'm expecting?

In the summer here in MI, my well water doesn't get much below 62F. What I've done is hooked up a small secondary coil inline. I put the small chiller in a bucket of ice water, then that gets the outgoing water down an additional 5-10F, depending on how much pressure I push it out at. My small chiller is about 20' (leftover from a small plumbing job years ago), then my main chiller is 40'. This works really well in the summer, and I used quick disconnects to allow me to take it out of the mix during the winter months.

As for your current dilemma, if you're using that Belgian strain, you should be able to just leave it in your primary for a few weeks. Some of that should clear up, but I've never used 570, so don't quote me on it. Let's see what others have to say.

You should be fine. I have never used that yeast, but have used WY1388 which is similar and have fermented that up to the high 70's with good results.

In the future if you can get your wort cooler and let it ramp up, that gives the best results for me, with the Belgian yeasts. I get my wort down to about 64-65 and then just let it do it's thing.

I primarily brew Belgians, and you know why, because I live in South Texas. Belgian yeast does amazing things at high temps, so many pleasant esters. I have fermented Belgians at 85 degrees, and the end result was great. Cheers, hope all is well up there.

beergolf said:

In the future if you can get your wort cooler and let it ramp up, that gives the best results for me, with the Belgian yeasts. I get my wort down to about 64-65 and then just let it do it's thing.

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This is often the same as what I read. Start your Belgians at a lower temp for primary, usually 64F, then ramp up 1-2F every day (if you can control it that slowly). Hold it near the upper range for the strain you're using, for about 10 days, then let it ride at cooler room temp for a week or two. Don't rack it to secondary, just let it finish out on its own schedule.

I've done one Belgian strong ale, and I didn't get the temps up past 70F, and it was just not right. Not fruity enough, too much spice flavor. I've got a dubbel queued up, and I'm going to run that with WLP500. White Labs says the range is 65-72F, but I've read many reviews saying to keep it under 67F if I'm using it in a dubbel recipe. Lots of conflicting info on Belgian strains, it seems.

Agreed, I use a pre chiller with a bucket of ice water in addition to my kettle chiller and cant get my temps below 80. You should get some great flavors out of that yeast fermenting warm! I'm fermenting a Belgian in the garage and the temps are constantly 85-90, never had a problem.

I'm thinking of racking this one. wlp570 is "low flocculation" and i'd like the finished product to be a clearer but we'll see. although, i swear it seemed like there was an inch and a half of sediment at the bottom of the carboy within 3-4 hours of pitching. i had feelings ranging from "hell yes" to "holy flocculation".

I'm coming to terms with, at my present configuration, all of my beers are going to ferment at the high end. I'll have to try the second chiller in line. i think that would work great for my present setup. It could get the carboy down to mid 60s and let it just rise on its own. that seems to be the consensus.

The upside is i have great saison temperatures if i ever want to do one!

The thing I like about summer is that it is a great time to brew Belgians and Saisons. I brew them a lot to build up my supply for the cooler months.

I generally do one IPA/ APA or other beer that needs to ferment cooler. Put it in my fermentation chamber and then the next week do a Belgian or Saison so I can leave the other beer in the fermentation chamber for a full two weeks. I pull the one beer out after two weeks so I can put another one in the chamber. I then let the original brew sit at room temp for another week or two. This system works great for me during the warm summer months.

I had a belgian blond run away from me with Wyeast Belgian Abbey II. At the peak, the thermometer on the side was reading 84 F. Two weeks in the primary, one week in the bottle before I sampled it. It's got crazy fruity flavors, but doesn't taste of hot alcohol. Really pretty good.

Ahhh... I long for the days when Belgian blonds would run away WITH me...

You need a pre-wort chiller. It is basically a small wort chiller that you put in an ice bath upstream of the wort chiller.

CO2 is slowing down now. should be able to take the blowoff tube out this evening(about 24 hours after pitch) and replace with a bubbler.

I have been brewing beer in hot climates in small one bedroom apts. So, it gets very hot and very cold at times. I have gone to the trouble of wrapping ice packs around the bucket and hold them onto it with rubber bands. It seems to do the trick. The only problem is that you need to constantly change the ice packs.