First batch mistake... Hopeless?

Hi,

I probably made a massive mistake... But here goes...

About 9 hours ago I mixed a DIY Coopers 5 gal Lager mix... Everything seemed to go well (SG without yeast 30) except that I couldn't bring the wort temp close to the recommended 21C - 27C range before adding the yeast... (It was more like 40C...) I tried to bring the temp down with a cold chill, but time was running out, so I added the yeast within 30 minutes of the original mix and stored the sealed fermenter out in the cold garage until the temp reach 28 C... It took six hours for the batch to reach 28C where it rests now...

There's a thin white froth on the surface...

Is this hopeless?

Should I mix in a new packet of yeast?

Other thoughts?

Thanks in advance...

Alan

That "thin white froth" should be krausen (normal fermentation). It'll be fine. Then again, I'm not too experienced with lagers in which case someone will say that I'm wrong...

Although... 40c is pretty dang hot to pitch the yeast into for any style of beer. What is that, around 104 F? Ouch...

Thanks Cracked1...

I hate to give up on this batch (years ago I used to be a serious brewer and it will be humiliating to re-enter the hobby with a dud...) My thought at the time is that when I make home-made bread, I crank the temp to the max and the yeast does just fine... Maybe beer will respond in kind? I didn't mean for it to work out this way, but failure to monitor the temp forced my hand... My bad... That's one mistake I won't make again...

Alan

I would say 28 °C (82 °F) is way too hot to ferment anything. The high pitching temp may not matter, as I would imagine you will get a lot of fusels out of the high temp, and the normal esters caused by the yeast stress will be covered up. Any way of getting that fermentation temp reigned in a little better?

@cracked1 fellow TV brewer here. It's rare to see Idahoans on here.

I'm my admittedly limited experience if you ferment lager yeast hot you end up with fusel alcohol flavors in the normal fermentation window. When I did this I put the hoppy paint thinner in my keezer and forgot it for a couple months. It turned out fine after giving the yeast time to sort their environment out.

In theory you could pitch more yeast now at proper temp. The second yeast cycle would not give you the off flavors for the sugar it consumed and may become dominant if you killed some of your first pitch w high temp. Just a thought .

104F is fine for rehydrating dry yeast however 28C is too high for lager, you want around 12C for lager fermentation then when it's actually time to lager you want closer to 3-4C. Open that garage door and chill that baby down

Hi all,

First, thanks for all your help!

As it stands now (17 hours into the brew), against all odds, the head has developed well. However, a white layer still resides on the bottom of the fermenter... Has the fermenting sugar come out of solution?

I think I'm going to just watch this -- lesson learned. I'll watch the specific gravity, keep checking for a foul smell, and cross my fingers...

Thanks again...

Alan

The white layer is the yeast that has done all it can and has settled out of the wort. Perfectly normal. I avoided worrying about that white layer by starting with a plastic bucket where I couldn't see it.

im trying to understand what you mean by "tried to get the temp down but ran out of time"
were you going by what the instructions said or?....

djfriesen said:

@cracked1 fellow TV brewer here. It's rare to see Idahoans on here.

Click to expand...

Yeah, there's a few of us here but we are definitely a minority. Do you do anything with the Snake River Brewers club?

(just a quick thread hi-jack... )

I work Thursday evenings so their meetings are not possible for me currently. Once I can find a normal 9-5 engineering job, I really want to get plugged in over there.

I'm not a member yet but a friend of mine is a club officer. I will be joining them for a group brew day on New Years day if you're interested. Shoot me a PM if you'd like details.

Now back to our regularly scheduled thread...

Hi,

Well, it's been roughly 2.5 days and the head has starting to fall... I checked last night, and there was some activity in the fermenter... It smells right... So I figure I'll give it a few more days and then start checking the SG for stability and taste... If that's ok, I'll bottle and wait...

Fingers crossed,

Alan

Be patient. Your yeast tears through the easy sugars pretty fast but then it slows down and keeps on chugging along for a lot longer than most people think. I wouldn't start checking the gravity until at least 2 weeks had passed and I usually wait 3 to 4 weeks in the primary fermenter before I bottle. I've also found that by leaving it a little longer in the fermenter it seemed to mature quicker so even with that longer time in fermenter I still was drinking good beer sooner.

RM-MN,

Yup... I think you're right on... In the long ago past, I found that extract manufacturers were a lot like glue manufacturers -- they give the 'ideal' cure time, but not the practical... I'm going to let this one sit for a while... At its peak, this batch had a good 2" of froth on top, so something must have worked... It smells great, so I might be in the clear... When I do bottle, I'll let that sit for a while too. In the mean time, I can always drink Bud... Ummm... Maybe a less-than-perfect home brew isn't so bad after all...

Alan

I heard back from Coopers... They confirmed that the yeast could survive 40C, but the results probably wouldn't be too good... (Could it be any worse than Bud???) They suggested bottling as soon as the SG stabilizes (pretty quick concerning the high fermenting temp) and then leaving alone for a month or more...

Live and learn...

Alan

helibrewer said:

104F is fine for rehydrating dry yeast however 28C is too high for lager, you want around 12C for lager fermentation then when it's actually time to lager you want closer to 3-4C. Open that garage door and chill that baby down

Click to expand...

Most of the kits that they sell market as "lager" aren't actually lagers, but lager "style" ales with something like US-05 that ferments cleanly at higher temps. I would say if the kit says the recommended fermentation range is 21-27C then it's probably an ale yeast and not an actual lager.

We brewed the Coopers Lager style kit for our first brew, and made the same mistakes you did. We let it go in primary for 3 weeks to compensate for the high temps, then bottled. It was still pretty loaded with fusel (that alcohol taste) for a couple months, but it faded with time.

Up date...

Bottled the Coopers lager... Even right out of the fermenter, it tasted better than Bud, but that isn't saying much... Time will tell...

Mixed up a Coopers Stout kit and got the temp just right... (It's really quite simple -- just heat enough water to dissolve the syrup and sugar, and then add cold water to stabilize around 25c.) All told, I like the DIY Coopers brewing system -- just had a second delivered today along with a Cooper's English bitters kit... I'll keep you posted on the progress of that one on a different thread...

Thanks for all the help!!!

Alan

UPDATE:

Well, it's been apx. 2 weeks, and I'm starting to sample... It's rough, the bubbles are coarse, but both the wife and I agree that it's better than Bud, Coors, and Miller... Considering how badly I botched the temp... pretty good...

Alan

Final update... After a couple weeks of aging in the bottle, and then some refrigeration ... ... ... Very good... If brewed properly, this beats the commercial stuff hands down. Good job Coopers!!

Alan

Sweet! Patience is definitely a virtue in brewing. Example: I recently uncovered a full case of bottles from my first ever all grain batch. I had botched that batch badly. Missed all my temps, had a bad crush, etc... Was not good beer... It's been about a year now and I cracked one open when I found it. Pretty decent stuff now! Far from my best but very drinkable.