Why such a hangover???

[AndyCornholder]

So my first brew out of the gate was a Black IPA. Easy enough it would seem. Well here is the problem. None of us can drink the dang thing without getting a massive headache and hangover. The beer tastes good and is easy to drink, but the backlash is terrible.

The story:

New Year's Eve the neighbor had a little get together. I took some of my Black IPA's over and each of us had one. I had a couple of IPA's after the Black and Saturday was not a good day. In fact, it was a day I will never get back. I spent about 2 hours upright and the rest of the time in the fetal position praying the pain would go away. Severe headache and nausea. Now I am probably a lightweight but it doesn't stop there. The neighbor had a nasty headache all day Saturday and another guy at the party that had one was sick as well. We have tried the beer on another occasion and I had one and felt fine but the neighbor had two and ended up with a nasty headache.

My question is, what did I brew up? Devil water?

Here is the recipe and details.

Black IPA

7 lbs. Dark Malt Extract (liquid)
3/4 lb. Victory (toasted)
1/2 lb. Honey Malt
1/2 oz chinook (60 min)
1/2 oz chinook (30 min)
1 oz cascade (5 min)
White Labs American Ale Yeast (vial)

Brewed 11/14/2010
Primary to secondary 11/21/2010
Bottled 11/28/2010

O.G. - 1.120
F.G. - 1.030

I would like to brew up another Black IPA since I do like to drink them but if this is what to expect I think I may dry hop it with Advil and Tums.

Any help or advice?

 

[BendBrewer]

I will guess the left over sugars for $1000 Alex. 1.030 huh?

 

[BeerWard]

Alcohol By Volume calculator puts that at 12% ABV. I think that is the answer. Nice Brew!

 

[jds]

Well, for starters, homebrew shouldn't give a person any more of a headache than any other drink. I suspect a lack of before-bed hydration as opposed to it being from the homebrew itself.

Second, are you sure you hit 1.120 OG? It's possible to do it with 7 lb of extract, but only if it's a 2.5 gallon batch.

If it was 2.5 gallons, then your beer going from 1.120 to 1.030 is about 12% ABV, which may have a lot to do with the post-drinking headaches.

Oh, and I just noticed you're a CO guy. Welcome aboard!

 

[azfalcon]

Im just a rookie but what was the F.G supposed to be? Were you near that?

 

[McChub]

I will guess the left over sugars for $1000 Alex. 1.030 huh?

no doubt

 

[BrookdaleBrew]

What temp did it ferment at? Higher fermentation temperatures result in the production of fusel alcohols. Fusel alcohols contribute to hangovers.

 

[AndyCornholder]

I will guess the left over sugars for $1000 Alex. 1.030 huh?

It was my maiden voyage and as best I can tell those are the numbers I came up with.

Well, for starters, homebrew shouldn't give a person any more of a headache than any other drink. I suspect a lack of before-bed hydration as opposed to it being from the homebrew itself.

Second, are you sure you hit 1.120 OG? It's possible to do it with 7 lb of extract, but only if it's a 2.5 gallon batch.

If it was 2.5 gallons, then your beer going from 1.120 to 1.030 is about 12% ABV, which may have a lot to do with the post-drinking headaches.

Oh, and I just noticed you're a CO guy. Welcome aboard!

Thanks for the welcome. It was a 5 gallon boil and thinking more about it, it may have been 8 lbs. of DLME. They might have been out of 7 lb. pails. If you need a headache I would be happy to toss one your way for critique.

Im just a rookie but what was the F.G supposed to be? Were you near that?

I have no idea. The recipe I used didn't include O.G. and F.G. targets. I wish it would have then I would know what I was shooting for.

What temp did it ferment at? Higher fermentation temperatures result in the production of fusel alcohols. Fusel alcohols contribute to hangovers.

It was in my basement and hung out around 62* - 70*.


So if it is left over sugars, did I get impatient on my first batch and not let it ferment long enough?

 

[NWMOBrewer]

I would just say take a picture of your hydrometer next time because if its 12%, you're having 12 oz glasses of beer tasting sparkling wine, and that'd be 3 drinks per beer.

 

[Nurmey]

If that was all you put in and you ended up with around 5 gallons, it was not 1.120. That much malt would give you about 1.057. It also means that this beer was barely fermented if indeed it was 1.030 when you bottled. I'm surprised you didn't have bottle bombs.

 

[Grinder12000]

Five friends and one empty 5 gallon carboy - do the math LOL

 

[jds]

Yep, I think you got impatient. For new brewers, it's more common to let the beer ferment for up to three weeks before bottling. If you bottled at a gravity of 1.030, you had a lot of sugars left, or a ton of unfermentables in your wort.

The key thing is this: Yeast don't have calendars. They don't care when you pitched or what day you plan to bottle on. They eat sugar until it's gone, then they go to sleep.

I wouldn't discount the possibility of bottle bombs, with as high as your gravity was at bottling. If I were you, I'd store the bottles in a big plastic bucket to contain shrapnel and/or beer in case you do get a grenade or two.

Also, this isn't uncommon at all for new brewers. You're part of the club now.

 

[AndyCornholder]

Yep, I think you got impatient. For new brewers, it's more common to let the beer ferment for up to three weeks before bottling. If you bottled at a gravity of 1.030, you had a lot of sugars left, or a ton of unfermentables in your wort.

The key thing is this: Yeast don't have calendars. They don't care when you pitched or what day you plan to bottle on. They eat sugar until it's gone, then they go to sleep.

I wouldn't discount the possibility of bottle bombs, with as high as your gravity was at bottling. If I were you, I'd store the bottles in a big plastic bucket to contain shrapnel and/or beer in case you do get a grenade or two.

Also, this isn't uncommon at all for new brewers. You're part of the club now.

Thanks for this explanation, it is what I was looking for. Unfortunately the recipe came from the LHBS and all it was was a ingredients list. I didn't have O.G. or F.G. targets. I have three brews total with a Vanilla Porter and an IPA also in bottles. The recipes for the Porter and IPA had target O.G. and F.G. readings and I got darn close on the Porter and pretty close on the ipa. They both turned out good as well. The Black IPA has good flavor but will rip you a new one. Lesson learned here is to pick a recipe that has all the details until I learn more.

What could I have done differently in this case if my starting gravity was indeed 1.120 and F.G. was 1.030? Let it ferment longer to narrow the gap in these numbers? Also, the bottles don't seem to have much carbonation at all right now. It has been bottled over a month now. Should I still worry about bottle bombs given these details?

I will start looking for another recipe for a Black IPA (with more details) and give it another shot. Not ready to give up on this one yet but might use it to clean barnacle from a boat or strip paint.

Thanks for the help.

 

[remilard]

The starting gravity wasn't 1.120.

As for the hangover. You drank one homebrew and some other stuff on NYE and had a hangover the next day like 50% of the population. Occam's razor dude.

 

[Bobby_M]

I'm assuming this was a 2.5 gallon batch because 7lbs of LME in 5 gallons is only 1.048 OG.


It's not easy to get a beer that big to ferment much further than 1.030 anyway. Frankly, it could have been in the primary another 2 months and it would probably stick at 1.030.

However, you really should have left that thing on the primary yeast for 3 weeks. I'm assuming that you just directly pitched that vial of yeast which is WAY underpitching for an OG of that size (2 vials or a 2 liter starter would be borderline IMHO). Since you actually did get it to ferment out that far, I'm guessing the fermenter temps got hotter than 70-75F where fusels come out to play.

 

[GaryJohn]

Yeah, the hangover won't be due to sugars. It fermented too warm most likely.

The fermentation produces heat. So if its 70 degrees in the room, the wort could be pushing 80 degrees, or more. The stressed yeast produces fusel alcohols if they are too warm, and those can give a killer hang over.

Also, don't forget to hydrate while you drink!

 

[lilwiggum]

What could I have done differently in this case if my starting gravity was indeed 1.120 and F.G. was 1.030? Let it ferment longer to narrow the gap in these numbers? QUOTE]

Yeast starters are used by many on this board and have definitely improved the fermentations of my beers. Take a look here:

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f39/how-make-yeast-starter-pictorial-76101/

 

[jds]

Gary, Bobby:

It wasn't really a 1.120 beer. It was more like 1.050-1.060, depending on whether Andy used 7 or 8 lb of extract.

Andy: Did you take your OG before or after adding the top-off water to the concentrated wort? It's surprisingly hard to get the dense wort and water well-mixed, so OG readings can vary a lot based on your mixing technique. However, since you're using extract, it's easy to come up with a very accurate estimate of your OG.

Assuming the LME provides 38 ppppg (that's 38 points per pound per gallon) and neglecting the relatively minor contributions from your steeping grains, you will have either 38 * 7 / 5 = 53.2 or 38 * 8 /5 = 60.8 gravity points, to give you an OG of 1.053 to 1.061.

Now, assuming your 1.030 FG is correct, you are in the neighborhood of 3.9% ABV. Alcohol content's not the cause of the headaches.

So, what should you be shooting for? A good rule of thumb is that you want to shoot for around 75% attenuation from most yeasts. So, if you start with a 1.053 beer, you should be looking at a terminal gravity of around 1.013.

As for how you get there, it's really not too hard. First, pitch plenty of yeast. For an IPA of that gravity, I'd recommend one package of Safale US-05. It's relatively cheap, easy to use, and won't require a starter. Liquid yeast is more complicated.

Second, aerate the cooled beer prior to pitching. Once the beer gets down near pitching temperature, grab your fermenter, and shake the crap out of it for a minute or two (with the lid on, please!). You can make this step real complicated if you wish, but a good shaking will help get oxygen into solution, which helps the yeast reproduce.

After that, pitch yeast, put your fermenter in a cool, dark place (above 65F please), and ignore it completely for two weeks. Then, check gravity and see how it turns out.

 

[AndyCornholder]

Gary, Bobby:

It wasn't really a 1.120 beer. It was more like 1.050-1.060, depending on whether Andy used 7 or 8 lb of extract.

Andy: Did you take your OG before or after adding the top-off water to the concentrated wort? It's surprisingly hard to get the dense wort and water well-mixed, so OG readings can vary a lot based on your mixing technique. However, since you're using extract, it's easy to come up with a very accurate estimate of your OG.

Assuming the LME provides 38 ppppg (that's 38 points per pound per gallon) and neglecting the relatively minor contributions from your steeping grains, you will have either 38 * 7 / 5 = 53.2 or 38 * 8 /5 = 60.8 gravity points, to give you an OG of 1.053 to 1.061.

Now, assuming your 1.030 FG is correct, you are in the neighborhood of 3.9% ABV. Alcohol content's not the cause of the headaches.

So, what should you be shooting for? A good rule of thumb is that you want to shoot for around 75% attenuation from most yeasts. So, if you start with a 1.053 beer, you should be looking at a terminal gravity of around 1.013.

As for how you get there, it's really not too hard. First, pitch plenty of yeast. For an IPA of that gravity, I'd recommend one package of Safale US-05. It's relatively cheap, easy to use, and won't require a starter. Liquid yeast is more complicated.

Second, aerate the cooled beer prior to pitching. Once the beer gets down near pitching temperature, grab your fermenter, and shake the crap out of it for a minute or two (with the lid on, please!). You can make this step real complicated if you wish, but a good shaking will help get oxygen into solution, which helps the yeast reproduce.

After that, pitch yeast, put your fermenter in a cool, dark place (above 65F please), and ignore it completely for two weeks. Then, check gravity and see how it turns out.

I have a lot to learn to be able to communicate with you guys in beer lingo. Hopefully this explanation might help you fill in the gaps some more.

I brewed the beer in a Keggle (keg with ball valve at bottom and lid cut out of top) on a turkey fryer in my garage. Keggle borrowed from neighbor. I steeped the grains in 5 gallons of water for 30 minutes. I removed the grains, turned off the burner, and stirred in the LME. I fired up the fryer again and brought the tea up to a light boil for 60 min adding hops along the way.

After the brew was done we took the keggle out to the yard and set it on the snow in my grass. Here is where I made a rookie mistake. We poured the hot wort into my primary better bottle with the wort at probably 140*. Deformed the better bottle a little. I didn't add any top off water to make 5 gallons exactly so OG was taken from non-diluted wort. Just guessing but I think we had approximately 4-1/2 gallons of wort. We took the primary into the house and put it into a cold water bath for about 45-60 minutes to get the temp down to 75*. I checked OG and pitched the yeast at about 75* (according to the sticker thermometer on my better bottle) and then moved it to the basement where the ambient air temp is usually 65*-70*. I didn't aerate the wort vigorously. I let it ferment in the primary for 1 week (had bubbles in 24 hours and they were done at about day 4). Racked it to the secondary at day 7 and left it there for 7 days. It was then that I took FG and bottled.

For those that say the headache comes from drinking too much beer, we aren't pounding 3 or 4 of these beers. We are getting headaches from one beer. I know we followed them on New Year's Eve with a couple of other beers but these headaches have happened on more than one occasion. If I was stumbling drunk then I would agree to cut back on my drinking but we aren't that drunk. There is definitely something to this beer that is not right. Being a newbie to brewing, I am just trying to learn what it could be and how to avoid it in the future. If this is the future, I would be more apt to buy my beer but that isn't as much fun as brewing my own.

 

[jds]

I have a lot to learn to be able to communicate with you guys in beer lingo. Hopefully this explanation might help you fill in the gaps some more.

I brewed the beer in a Keggle (keg with ball valve at bottom and lid cut out of top) on a turkey fryer in my garage. Keggle borrowed from neighbor. I steeped the grains in 5 gallons of water for 30 minutes. I removed the grains, turned off the burner, and stirred in the LME. I fired up the fryer again and brought the tea up to a light boil for 60 min adding hops along the way.

After the brew was done we took the keggle out to the yard and set it on the snow in my grass. Here is where I made a rookie mistake. We poured the hot wort into my primary better bottle with the wort at probably 140*. Deformed the better bottle a little. I didn't add any top off water to make 5 gallons exactly so OG was taken from non-diluted wort. Just guessing but I think we had approximately 4-1/2 gallons of wort. We took the primary into the house and put it into a cold water bath for about 45-60 minutes to get the temp down to 75*. I checked OG and pitched the yeast at about 75* (according to the sticker thermometer on my better bottle) and then moved it to the basement where the ambient air temp is usually 65*-70*. I didn't aerate the wort vigorously. I let it ferment in the primary for 1 week (had bubbles in 24 hours and they were done at about day 4). Racked it to the secondary at day 7 and left it there for 7 days. It was then that I took FG and bottled.

For those that say the headache comes from drinking too much beer, we aren't pounding 3 or 4 of these beers. We are getting headaches from one beer. I know we followed them on New Year's Eve with a couple of other beers but these headaches have happened on more than one occasion. If I was stumbling drunk then I would agree to cut back on my drinking but we aren't that drunk. There is definitely something to this beer that is not right. Being a newbie to brewing, I am just trying to learn what it could be and how to avoid it in the future. If this is the future, I would be more apt to buy my beer but that isn't as much fun as brewing my own.

This is a great summary. Don't sweat any mistakes you did or didn't make on this brew -- you're learning from it, and you'll have a better idea what to do next time around.

At this point, I'm awfully confused as to how you got a 1.120 gravity measurement, since you boiled the full volume of wort. Most new brewers start with boiling their extract in a couple of gallons of water, then topping off with more water afterward. Your method is just fine, though. In fact, many brewers prefer to boil the full volume of wort, even when using extracts.

Since you measured 1.120 on a wort that should really be around 1.050 to 1.060, I'm not sure that I would trust your FG reading, either. I don't know if it's a problem with your measurement technique, your hydrometer, or both. Maybe you should try another reading on the finished product. Bobby_M made a good video on reading hydrometers:

No offense intended here, but something's wrong. You might want to try taking a reading on tapwater also. If it's close to 1.000, then the hydrometer's at least close enough to give you an educated guess.

As for the headache issue, I'm kind of stumped at this point. Your ferment temperatures and ABV don't seem to be high enough to generate the kind of alcohols that can make headaches.

 

[fattire357]

There is definitely something to this beer that is not right. Being a newbie to brewing, I am just trying to learn what it could be and how to avoid it in the future. If this is the future, I would be more apt to buy my beer but that isn't as much fun as brewing my own.

Yeast are incredibly complicated living creatures. The best apart about brewing beer for me is you never really know what they'll throw at you. I bet your answers lies a little bit with what people said earlier about fusel alcohols, and a little bit of a perfect storm.

The chemical profile of what exactly they made in that batch to give such a terrific hangover is probably too complicated to answer, even if you had a huge research grant. I know that's probably not the answer you were looking for but that's the cool part about yeast.

To be safe, I'd change the yeast strains... don't use the exact same one.

 

[SumnerH]

I checked OG and pitched the yeast at about 75* (according to the sticker thermometer on my better bottle) and then moved it to the basement where the ambient air temp is usually 65*-70*.

Fermentation is exothermic, so if the ambient temperature is 70F then you're probably fermenting closer to 75F. That's not horrible, but it's warm enough that you can get nasty fusel alcohols. If you can get the external temp in the low 60s, you may be happier with your results.

 

[mightynintendo]

If you had 4.5 gallons of wort, assuming your steeped grains were done at the proper temperature and you got 75% extraction, there's no way your OG was 1.120. That makes me a bit skeptical of your FG reading, but assuming your FG reading is accurate at 1.030, your yeast had around 51% apparent attenuation. That's an ABV of about 4%. Based on the information you have provided, there are a LOT of unfermented sugars in your beer my friend.

Not that sugars are going to cause headaches...

You're right though, something is definitely not right. Certainly the yeast shouldn't have stalled at 50% attenuation. Could have been some bad yeast but again that doesn't explain the headache.

You did say:

We have tried the beer on another occasion and I had one and felt fine...

Which pretty much makes proving the beer is the culprit a nearly impossible thing to do. Set up a control scenario and try various amounts of the beer and then record the headaches you get and how long after consumption they occur. We'll get to the bottom of this!

 

[AndyCornholder]

Which pretty much makes proving the beer is the culprit a nearly impossible thing to do. Set up a control scenario and try various amounts of the beer and then record the headaches you get and how long after consumption they occur. We'll get to the bottom of this!

Eff that. That was 24 hours of my life I will never get back and truth be told probably shaved some time off my life and deleted some of my short term memory.

Thanks to everyone who has chimed in on this. My OG and FG readings may and probably are way off. I know it does pack a punch as this beer will make your head spin. I guess I will enjoy it pinkies up in a port glass with 12 of my closest friends. I agree the alcohol, whatever level it may be, is not the direct cause of the headaches. Oh well, chalk it up as a learning experience.

This brings me to another thought. What do you guys do with a beer that turns wicked south on you? Suffer through it? Feed it to the neighbors cat? Give it away to unsuspecting guests?

Thanks all!

 

[BigTexun]

Give it time. It will get better. That, I think, is what we all do with batches that aren't right for any reason. Make another batch and come back to that one in a month or two or three.

 

[mightynintendo]

How can we chalk it up as a learning experience if it isn't known if the beer is even causing the headaches? And if it is, why?

 

[jds]

What do you guys do with a beer that turns wicked south on you? Suffer through it? Feed it to the neighbors cat? Give it away to unsuspecting guests?

I had a couple of bad batches earlier this year, due to a fermenter bucket that was harboring some kind of organism that threw off a ton of nasty aftertastes. Imagine chewing on a bandaid made of aluminum foil. yech.

Now, I generally think time will heal most faults with a beer, but these two batches were still terrible 5 months after brewing. I dumped 'em, nuked the fermenter with bleach, and relegated it to before-boil duties. I'm back to fermenting in glass or stainless only.

I've also had other beers that were okay, but not up to my usual standards for myself. I drank those. I consider it penance for my mistakes.

One thing I will NOT do is serve beer I'm not happy with to guests. I see giving away homebrew as being a sort of ambassador for our slightly weird (to the mainstream) hobby. The last thing I want to do is serve somebody else beer that's off and give them a poor impression of homebrewers and brewing.

[/soapbox]

 

[bdf24]

One thing I will NOT do is serve beer I'm not happy with to guests. I see giving away homebrew as being a sort of ambassador for our slightly weird (to the mainstream) hobby. The last thing I want to do is serve somebody else beer that's off and give them a poor impression of homebrewers and brewing.
[/soapbox]

This I agree with. I have not bought any of my equipment yet to start brewing but I'm hoping to soon. Almost everyone I talk to says the homebrew they have had from others was awful! My wife has told me people at her work who have tried it told her the same thing. From the get go I've noticed a lot of negative feelings towards homebrew, like it's sub par, or nothing like anything that can be bought off the shelf.
My goal is to eventually prove them wrong. I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that most people are BMC drinkers and have never really experienced a full flavored beer. I don't hate BMC beers, I'll drink em, but I prefer a full flavored beer now days.

 

[jangelj]

i had a similar headache issue awhile back. read this thread:
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f39/headache-bottle-172549/

I brought my beer up to whatever temp it says in that thread (maybe ~150 or 160?) for about20-30 minutes, rechilled and recarbed and it did not give me a headache. That was enough proof to me that the problem was fusels.

You can probably put the beer in a pot in the oven at the set temp, I did mine on the stove, but it is harder to maintain a set temp without going too high.

 

[joegocal]

i am just a noob at this so this answer may/may not be even close. But 1.030 means theres still a lot of sugar left, like a lot of sugar.

I and my friends alike can often go an entire night drinking just beer and not be hungover but as soon as your throw in 2-3 rum & cokes or for the ladies, "coolers" (which I contests is just boozy fruit juice) the hangover gets worse.

We have hypothesized (bearing in mind none of us are doctors) that since sugar is a diuretic as is alcohol they together form something akin to a "justice league of headache creation" and intensify the effect of the alcohol.

My guess would be that something similar is going on in your sugary beer.

 

[scrambledegg81]

After dismantling the walk-through of your brew day, I am 99.999999% positive that this was the problem:

I didn't add any top off water to make 5 gallons exactly so OG was taken from non-diluted wort. Just guessing but I think we had approximately 4-1/2 gallons of wort.

I let it ferment in the primary for 1 week (had bubbles in 24 hours and they were done at about day 4). Racked it to the secondary at day 7 and left it there for 7 days.

For those that say the headache comes from drinking too much beer, we aren't pounding 3 or 4 of these beers. We are getting headaches from one beer.

What I get from that is the following:

-Abnormally high OG reading was caused by not bringing the wort up to recipe level. I'm almost positive the 1.120 whatever you got was most likely correct. Topping off to recipe specs is a good thing.

-2 weeks from primary to bottle is on the risky side considering yeasties usually take anywhere from 3-6 weeks (on average) to do their thing & clean up after the party. If they're still actively fermenting and get stuck inside a bottle, you've got 2 cases of sudsy explosives on your hands.

-Due to the excessive amount of sugars present, the yeasties may have been shocked or prematurely crapped out, which would lead to the high FG. Was the final product noticeably sweet or fruity?

 

[SumnerH]

-Abnormally high OG reading was caused by not bringing the wort up to recipe level. I'm almost positive the 1.120 whatever you got was most likely correct.

There's no way the recipe he posted is getting anywhere near 1.120 even with the 1/2 gallon or so short he was--he was in the 1.060-1.065 range with that recipe and 4.5 gallons. He'd have to be wildly short--in the 2-2.5 gallon range of wort--to approach 1.120 with that recipe.

 

[malkore]

What if it wasn't 7lbs of LME, but 7kg?

I pulled a silly move like that a dozen years ago with a coopers kit...added 1kg of corn sugar instead of 1lb

(even though I'm American, I got it in my head Coopers is Australian so the directions had to be in metric, right?)

 

[AndyCornholder]

i had a similar headache issue awhile back. read this thread:
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f39/headache-bottle-172549/

I brought my beer up to whatever temp it says in that thread (maybe ~150 or 160?) for about20-30 minutes, rechilled and recarbed and it did not give me a headache. That was enough proof to me that the problem was fusels.

You can probably put the beer in a pot in the oven at the set temp, I did mine on the stove, but it is harder to maintain a set temp without going too high.

Thanks for that info. I went to your thread and it sounds like my beer is doing exactly what yours did. Lots of info in that thread to digest about fermenting. I am pretty sure I didn't give the beer near enough time to ferment and ended up with headache in a bottle.

This post from your thread seems to nail down the problem pretty good.

KellyK

I haven't seen this mentioned yet, so I will chime in. Acetaldehyde may be your cause. Acetaldehyde is a compound that causes off flavors and aromas in beer, often described as tasting and smelling like green apples, cut grass or green leaves, pumpkin, or latex paint. It is normally reduced to ethanol by yeast during the secondary fermentation, but oxidation of the finished beer may reverse this process, converting ethanol to acetaldehyde.

The chemical compound of acetaldehyde is a known cause of headaches in the vast majority of the population. It's typically higher in some beverages than others (one of the big three purposly adds it to promote the "green apple taste" because their customers are used to it.) Champagne also has higher levels of the compound than other alcoholic beverages - so if you're sensative to champagne that's an indicator you may be sensative to acetaldehyde.

If you really only are having one of your beers and getting a headache, then my guess is dehydration or the other "alcohol associated headache producers" are not your cause. You may not be giving your beer enough time on the yeast to propertly convert all of the acetalhyde to enthanol - or the yeast just isn't doing its job all the way around as evidenced by the comments concerning a sweet taste. That, or you are oxidizing your beer on the back end during the bottling process. Anyway, my guess is you've got higher than normal levels of the compound in your beer and that's what's giving you skullsplitters.

Was the final product noticeably sweet or fruity?

Not really. It has a good roasty flavor. Not too sweet.

 

[AndyCornholder]

So I have a couple of more questions after reading all the information in this thread along with this thread https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f39/headache-bottle-172549/.

Fusal alcohols are produced at higher fermentation temps? If so what is that threshold for an ale?

What kind of effect would you see, if any, from drinking green beer? Would it give you a huge headache?

 

[SumnerH]

So I have a couple of more questions after reading all the information in this thread along with this thread https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f39/headache-bottle-172549/.

Fusal alcohols are produced at higher fermentation temps? If so what is that threshold for an ale?

What kind of effect would you see, if any, from drinking green beer? Would it give you a huge headache?

Green shouldn't matter; it'll make the beer taste poor, but won't affect fusels.

Fermentation temp is the #1 thing that generates fusels; anything above about 69F can do that. A 65F room temp can reach 69F ferm temps. You're likely okay at those temps, but as room temp approaches 70F or more (so fermentation temp is in the 74F+ range), the likelihood of fusels increases significantly.

Basically, keep room temp at or below 65F and you're fine. Get north of 70F and things are more dangerous. Of course, the yeast strains and other factors can push those numbers north or south--if you're using the Dupont saison yeast, you may want to start off at 65F and wind up with 80F+ ambient temperatures toward the end of fermentation. But for most normal ales, keeping things below 70F ambient and ideally below 65F ambient is a good idea.

#2 on the list is building a big, healthy starter. But that's even more a taste issue and less a fusel issue than temperature, and for some yeasts (e.g. Bavarian hefe yeasts) you might actually want to pitch a small starter or just one packet of yeast.

 

[AndyCornholder]

Thanks SumnerH!