banana aroma and strong alcohol aromas plus oil slick

[BuckeyeOne]

For my third beer (and first totally on my own), I brewed a Belgian Strong Dark Ale with Wyest 3787.

It's been in the primary for three weeks and has developed a fairly strong banana aroma and, with the lid off of the fermenter, I get a really strong (but not sour) alcohol aroma. And now a very, very thin oil slick has developed on the top of the beer.

It's quite likely that I had the initial fermentation temperature around 74-75 degrees for a day or two before I brought it down to 68 --- which I've maintained for all but the first couple days of fermentation. When I took a gravity reading last week, I didn't notice any of these features.

Do I have fusel alcohol issues, or is this normal of a BSDA and 3787 after three weeks or so?

 

[BryanJ]

I know that most belgian breweries start fermentation at the lower end of the yeast temp and raise the temp of the beer so it finishes low. Ive tried to follow this with and its gotten me pretty god results. Also apparently they use candi sugar for up to 20% of the fermentables in the beer.

Can you list our recipe, that will help with determining the end result.

 

[jfr1111]

Pitch cool and let it rise afterwards. Doing the opposite can lead to increased phenol and fuesel alcohol production, as you experienced. The phenols can be cleaned up by longer conditionning but the fuesels won't.

It's critical to pitch at a low temperature because of a lot of the character of the beer is decided before the fermentation even begins, during the growth phase.

 

[BuckeyeOne]

I know that most belgian breweries start fermentation at the lower end of the yeast temp and raise the temp of the beer so it finishes low. Ive tried to follow this with and its gotten me pretty god results. Also apparently they use candi sugar for up to 20% of the fermentables in the beer.

Can you list our recipe, that will help with determining the end result.

The high temperature was ignorance on my part. I didn't do this by design.

 

[remilard]

That yeast fermented warm makes a lot of alcohol and banana, as you have learned. Fermented cool it is much more manageable.

This is a little difficult to accomplish, but if you could drink a Westmalle Dubbel next to a Westvleteren 6 (this is the hard one to get) you can see the difference in fermentation character. Westvleteren gets their yeast from Westmalle and they ferment much warmer.

Best beer in the world though, some say

Fusel alcohols will eventually oxidize. That's not a super fast process.

 

[weirdboy]

Yeah if you give it enough time those alcohol aromas will dissipate. I personally like the banana but that's a personal thing.

 

[BuckeyeOne]

That yeast fermented warm makes a lot of alcohol and banana, as you have learned. Fermented cool it is much more manageable.

This is a little difficult to accomplish, but if you could drink a Westmalle Dubbel next to a Westvleteren 6 (this is the hard one to get) you can see the difference in fermentation character. Westvleteren gets their yeast from Westmalle and they ferment much warmer.

Best beer in the world though, some say

Fusel alcohols will eventually oxidize. That's not a super fast process.

I did not plan on racking this to a secondary. Should I do that, though? Will it have any benefit in terms of the banana and alcohol aromas and flavors?