BE-134 fermentation temperature - Experiment

[Alan Reginato]

Hi!

Here's the recipe:



And I split in two fermenters. One was put in ice bath and the other remain at room temperature. Average fermentation temp for the first one, 22 C. The second, 28 C.

Initially I found a huge difference between them, the high temp has a distinct clove/cinnamon aroma. The low temp a more fruit, pear like.

At bottling, the clove/cinnamon seems to be much more interesting. But after 2 months, I clearly prefer the low temp. Was less "aggressive".

The beer itself, was fine. High carbonated, good head, bitter. An spicy, malty combination. Melanoidin malt has a dry, bread crust taste and I put too much. Maybe some earthy/citrus flavor of topaz hops remains, not sure about it. Too much flavors here. Plus clove and cinnamon in the high temp.

Now that's interesting. After 5 months the clove/cinnamon flavor, that should be caused by polyphenols (BE-134 is POF+), mellows down and I can't tell them apart.

Everywhere I read that polyphenols shouldn't fade away. I took that for sure.

What do you think about it?

 

[dmtaylor]

I am not completely surprised. Aging tends to dull many or most interesting flavors. Take it to the extreme -- if you were to age your beer for 10 years, I don't think it would be very interesting any longer. How long do the interesting flavors take to fade away? Well it depends, of course. In this case, about 5 months.

Thanks for sharing your results! This is educational.

 

[CascadesBrewer]

What do you think about it?

Good stuff!

BE-134 is on my list of yeast to try. I wonder how a temp in the middle of those would do. With WLP565 I have found good luck pitching around 68F/20C to 72F/22C and letting it rise to around 76F/25C. I am a bigger fan of pepper/clove character than pear/apple character in Saisons.