trekie86
Active Member
So everything was going fine...famous last words. I have a 5 gallon batch of Northern Brewer's Brickwarmer Red beer at the end of 2 weeks of fermentation. When I first put it into the fermentor and stuck it in the basement, the temps were getting too cold, in the 40s, this ain't no lager. So I thought I was quite clever and moved it upstairs into a spare bedroom where I put an automatic space heater that was set for ambient temperature of 70 degrees F. The space heater was no where near the beer directly and it seemed the beer was fermenting around 67-70, so I was happy with the process.
Fermentation was quite active and it seemed like things were going well. This past weekend I made 2 - 1 Gallon batches of beer. A pale ale and a pumpkin ale, for my wife. I put them up in the same room with blowoff hoses and left them, this was Friday evening. Saturday all appeared to be going well, the pale ale was bubbling nicely and the pumpkin looked like it was ready to start doing some work. These were all extract kits, by the way.
Today I stopped in just to check on it and the space heater had gone crazy. It didn't shut off as it was supposed to. The ambient temperature was at 90 degrees, it was like a sauna. I shut off the space heater and opened the door and left it be, we were on our way out of the house.
After we got home, I went up to check the beer. The pumpkin was pumping some serious krausen through the blow off hose and they were both still bubbling actively. The 5 gallons of red looked like it may have had some bubbles, by the amount of bubbles in the airlock but overall was calm. The thermometers on all of the fermenters are currently reading ~78 degrees, so they definitely went above 80. Am I screwed? Do I have to pitch 7 gallons of beer?
The 1 gallon batches seem to still be fermenting happy, my guess is that I if I leave them long enough, the yeast will clean out the off flavors due to high temps. Do I need to pitch more yeast in the Red to try and clean up the mess of potential off flavors? Should I transfer to a secondary?
Fermentation was quite active and it seemed like things were going well. This past weekend I made 2 - 1 Gallon batches of beer. A pale ale and a pumpkin ale, for my wife. I put them up in the same room with blowoff hoses and left them, this was Friday evening. Saturday all appeared to be going well, the pale ale was bubbling nicely and the pumpkin looked like it was ready to start doing some work. These were all extract kits, by the way.
Today I stopped in just to check on it and the space heater had gone crazy. It didn't shut off as it was supposed to. The ambient temperature was at 90 degrees, it was like a sauna. I shut off the space heater and opened the door and left it be, we were on our way out of the house.
After we got home, I went up to check the beer. The pumpkin was pumping some serious krausen through the blow off hose and they were both still bubbling actively. The 5 gallons of red looked like it may have had some bubbles, by the amount of bubbles in the airlock but overall was calm. The thermometers on all of the fermenters are currently reading ~78 degrees, so they definitely went above 80. Am I screwed? Do I have to pitch 7 gallons of beer?
The 1 gallon batches seem to still be fermenting happy, my guess is that I if I leave them long enough, the yeast will clean out the off flavors due to high temps. Do I need to pitch more yeast in the Red to try and clean up the mess of potential off flavors? Should I transfer to a secondary?