I brewed my first all-grain munich style weiss beer using a Wyeast smack pack. I had good gravity readings and decent efficiency. The yeast were very active, and even with a 6.5 gallon carboy I had to use a blow-off tube (into a bucket with sanitized water) to manage the overflow of activity.
After a few days I switched back to an airlock. After about ten days I should have bottled the beer. But we went on vacation. I've let ales sit in my primary for a month in the past with no ill effects.
But there was a heat wave when we were gone, and my usually 75 degree kitchen hit 100 degrees a few days we were gone.
I bottled as soon as we returned. The beer tasted a little stale, but still had the banana/ester flavor I expect from a weiss.
Two weeks later, the beer isn't carbonating correctly, and I'm getting a smell I can only describe as "soy sauce."
Research points to autolysis - dead yeast - compounded by the heat and the relatively long time in the primary. Without the heat, the length of time in the primary might not have been a problem.
Anyway, this is convincing me that unless the beer is in a temperature controlled space, a longer time in the primary could be a crap-shoot!
After a few days I switched back to an airlock. After about ten days I should have bottled the beer. But we went on vacation. I've let ales sit in my primary for a month in the past with no ill effects.
But there was a heat wave when we were gone, and my usually 75 degree kitchen hit 100 degrees a few days we were gone.
I bottled as soon as we returned. The beer tasted a little stale, but still had the banana/ester flavor I expect from a weiss.
Two weeks later, the beer isn't carbonating correctly, and I'm getting a smell I can only describe as "soy sauce."
Research points to autolysis - dead yeast - compounded by the heat and the relatively long time in the primary. Without the heat, the length of time in the primary might not have been a problem.
Anyway, this is convincing me that unless the beer is in a temperature controlled space, a longer time in the primary could be a crap-shoot!