What kind of damage have I done?

Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum

Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

ErikRobers

Active Member
Joined
Oct 13, 2015
Messages
30
Reaction score
2
Hey all, new brewer here.

So, I'm kind of an idiot. I started two beers this weekend, one on Saturday and one on Sunday and placed them in my closet with no thought about temp control... until really late Monday night... when I saw the closet temp was pushing 75, leaving me to imagine the temp of the wort was at 80 or so. The crazy part of the fermentation is done, but I got up extra early this morning anyway, went to Walmart and bought a big rubbermaid storage tub, and made a swamp cooler. I've been rotating ice blocks and now have a water temp of 64 degrees.

I guess what I need to know is whether this is too little, too late. I tend to just jump right into things and until last night never even considered temperature to be a factor, until I started reading all this stuff about hot alcohols and off-flavors. The airlock activity has slowed substantially, which I'm guessing is due to the lowered temp of the wort.

IMG_20151013_113333.jpg
 
I'm guessing that ultimately you will be fine, and will definitely produce drinkable beer.

One thing I've learned since I started brewing is that time in the bottle (or the keg, I presume) will sort out a lot of early problems. After some conditioning, you might have a beer that is perfectly fine.

Will it be perfect? Maybe not - but it will also never be a "mistake" that you make again.
 
You might be okay depending on the yeast used. Some yeasts are at their best with high fermentation temperatures. What was your yeast?

Since you are a new brewer I'll mention this, of course you may already be aware of this. Fermentations are usually not done in four days, and then require immediate racking to a secondary vessel. Some recipe instructions still repeat the old way of producing a beer as quickly as possible, without thought for the taste. A secondary vessel is usually not required at all.
 
You're more than likely fine, especially since you realized it within a reasonable amount of time. If anything, the high temp just kickstarted the yeast. You may get some unexpected flavors, but not in a bad sense, moreso in the sense of flavors the yeast creates at certain temps.

My first beer, I had no temp control and just left it in my dining room, which ranged from 72-75F. The beer still turned out fine.
 
Whew! That's comforting! I wouldn't have worried so much had I made a basic Munton's or Cooper's batch. I mean, I extract brewed, but I added additional malts and hops to these to try make something somewhat similar to a couple of my favorite beers... so, ya know... it was a larger monetary investment per batch. I'm glad to see that despite the warm temps of the closet (80 right now due to summer's refusal to DIE), that the water temps are remaining fairly stable. Means I won't have to worry about too much of a temp rise when I'm at work.
 
What was your yeast?

Since you are a new brewer I'll mention this, of course you may already be aware of this. Fermentations are usually not done in four days, and then require immediate racking to a secondary vessel.

flars, for the Ale I used Wyeast 1056, and for the milk stout, I believe I used US-05... a dry yeast.

Yeah, I educated myself well on time in the fermenter and such. I just hadn't seen much about temps in my readings until I actually looked for it last night.
 
I see you have airlocks instead of blow-off tubes. Does this mean neither carboy blew krausen into the airlocks? If so, that may also be a good sign that fermentation didn't get too out of control. As has been mentioned, you still have several days of active fermentation left and then some time for the yeasties to clean up after themselves. If I were brewing these beers, I would probably leave them in primary for a full three weeks, to let them clean up as much as possible. I know you are anxious to drink your first beers, but time is your friend if you want your beer to be it's best.
 
so fermentation started at like 75 and went up from there? That is far out of us-05s "acceptable" range. At this point, cooling it down will only possibly temp shock the yeast into going dormant and leave you with incomplete attenuation in addition to the off flavors from high fermentation temps.

Temp control is #1 to producing good quality homebrew IME. I would definitely invest in some sort of setup that will leave it less to chance. Not only keeping the temps in check but stable is also important. Ramping up at the end is usually recommended but this is after 99% of the flavors have been developed
 
As an interesting side note, US-05, and Wyeast-1056 are the same strain of yeast. So, it's kind of funny that you used one of each!
 
I see you have airlocks instead of blow-off tubes. Does this mean neither carboy blew krausen into the airlocks? If so, that may also be a good sign that fermentation didn't get too out of control.

Well, I took the pic after I removed the blowoff hoses. I used blowoff hoses and had then going into sanitized 1-gal spring water jugs filled 1/2 full with a water/iodine solution. The Stout didn't go to crazy, but with temps in the upper 70's in the closet on Monday morning, there was some overflow with the ale. I believe the fact that I used what was described as a very active yeast (Wyeast 1056), with which I made a 2-quart starter because of the 7.5% ABV I expect to hit was the difference maker.
 
Most of the off flavours from high fermentation temperatures are produced in the early stages of the ferment, when yeast are growing and multiplying. Unfortunately, this happened before you controlled temperatures. The yeast will have slowed down because, at that temp, they will have probably finished consuming most of the sugars (this doesn't mean that fermentation is complete).

The good news is that a lot of brewers never control temperatures, and still produce drinkable beer. Not perfect beer, but drinkable. With US05/WY1056 you are likely to get some noticeable fusel alcohols and slightly harsh esters, that might fade with a longer (3 week) ferment and extra time in the bottle/keg. Again, even with these flavours, the beer will most likely be good.
 
so fermentation started at like 75 and went up from there? That is far out of us-05s "acceptable" range. At this point, cooling it down will only possibly temp shock the yeast into going dormant and leave you with incomplete attenuation in addition to the off flavors from high fermentation temps.

Actually, the closet was 70 degrees when it put it in and fermentation started around that temp. Temp was still 70 in the morning, and that night when I checked the closet temp it was 75-76 degrees. I only lowered the temp the carboys are exposed to by 10 degrees, maybe 11 degrees. The more I think about it, the more I'm thinking it wasn't as damaging as I first feared, being as air temp outside the carboy is going to rise and fall much faster than the liquid wort temp inside of the carboys.
 
Actually, the closet was 70 degrees when it put it in and fermentation started around that temp. Temp was still 70 in the morning, and that night when I checked the closet temp it was 75-76 degrees. I only lowered the temp the carboys are exposed to by 10 degrees, maybe 11 degrees. The more I think about it, the more I'm thinking it wasn't as damaging as I first feared, being as air temp outside the carboy is going to rise and fall much faster than the liquid wort temp inside of the carboys.

You may be right, however, the fermentation itself produces heat, so during the most active phase I would expect the wort temp to be 5-6 degrees higher than the ambient air temp. So it probably got into the low 80s.
 
You may be right, however, the fermentation itself produces heat, so during the most active phase I would expect the wort temp to be 5-6 degrees higher than the ambient air temp. So it probably got into the low 80s.

No argument there, I'm guessing maybe 80 degrees though, just because wort temp isn't going to rise as fast as the air temp. Anyway, I was arguing more against the idea that having now maintained a water temp around the carboys of 64-66 degrees, that I caused some sort of shock to the yeast and now they're all going to become dormant, die, and give off putrid flavors because of it. I just read about something called "cold crashing" where you drop the temps to less than 40 degrees in order to stop the yeast, make them dormant, and flocculate out of the wort. I doubt a 10-12 degree drop around the carboys is going to be catastrophic... then again, I'm still learning, so I could be wrong.
 
A 10-12 degree drop could certainly slow some yeast and cause them to drop, though it depends on strain and actual temp. Some Belgian strains are known for that. At this point there may not be much you can do but ride it out and see.The second batch I ever brewed was WL001 (another chico strain like you used) and got horrible fusels fermenting in an 80 degree closet without temp control. They never aged out and I haven't brewed without temp control since. Hopefully you'll be luckier.
 
I don't think you need to be too concerned about a big temp drop because it would take a lot of cooling to dramatically drop the temp of 5 gallons of wort/beer.

To be honest, I've fermented a lot of beers in the upper 70's because of various reasons not worth explaining. They all turned out great, one of them winning 1st place in the APA category in a competition. To me, something you should be more concerned with - at least at this point - is simply making sure the bottles you are going to use are well cleaned and that you keep everything clean when bottling.

*I'm not advocating fermenting hot, just saying sometimes it happens, but doesn't guarantee a bad product.
 
You live and learn. You will most likely enjoy the beer because you made it yourself. All of us remember our "first time." :) With each batch, you'll learn something new. IMO a brew day is only a failure if the batch does neither 1) teaches you something and 2) creates undrinkable beer. As long as it does one of those 2, it's time well spent. Cheers!
 
I guess what I need to know is whether this is too little, too late.

Sorry, but I believe your temp reduction was too late. Most of the flavor compounds develop early in the fermentation up to high krausen. I believe the early stages are the most important for temp control while the yeast are reproducing and consuming the majority of the available sugars.

You will get beer, perhaps not as perfect as planned....RDWHAHB, enjoy and learn :)
 
Erik - it's going to be fine. One of the biggest themes I see among the members of our craft is a proclivity to over-think things and "twiddle with the knobs" too much.

It's going to be just fine; when you make your next batch, you will modify your technique and also have some experience under your belt with which to improve.
 
Back
Top