Headache beer!!

Ive made 25 gallons of homebrew so far (midwest supplies) my first was autamn amber ale,drank 2 and woke up with headache..my second is aussie light ale,drank 2 and had a headache within 1 hour,primary temps around 67deg for both..pitched yeast with aussie ale at 75 deg and amber a little over 80..the others are not ready to try yet,...WHY THE HEADACHE?....thanks

 

sounds like Fusel Alcohols. what are your fermenting temps? how long have they been conditioning?

let them sit longer and the yeast will take care of them

 

around a month between primary and secondary for both and about 65 to 67 deg,3 weeks in bottle

 

If you are pitching at 75-80, and your ambient is 67, you are likely fermenting at 75-80....

So I agree that fusel alcohols may be the culprit.

Try getting your fermentation temps lower. I use a 15 gallon bucket filled with water and enough frozen bottles of ice (20-32oz) to keep the temps close to ~62.

 

? I do exactly what he described for pretty much every batch, and I get perfectly fine beers. You should be able to taste fusel alcohol, it tastes hot. 67 is like perfect for most ales.

Are you hitting the correct OG? If it's too high, you might be making a very alcoholic beer. Combine that with not drinking enough water, and you might just be getting a little mini-hangover.

 

I haven't tasted your beers, and I'm not judging your beers, I'm just commenting on the process of the original poster.

I had an IPA that tasted "fine" (was fermented hot) and BJCP judges tore it apart because of fusel alcohols due to high fermentation temps.

I'm not debating that fine tasting beers can be made in a multitude of ways.

67 is good temperature if that the actual fermenting temperature. If you pitch your yeast into wort that is 80, and your room temperature is 67, you fermentation temperature will likely be closer to 80 than 67, because of the exothermic results of fermentation. It gives off heat, and my never actually reach that "67" temp.

I ferment my ales in a 60*F house......I pitch at around 65. I have scored 45/50 in comps. I'm not pulling that card out for bragging rights, I'm just saying that be aware not only of pitching temps, "fermentation" temps, but of actual fermentation temps.

In the end, it's all good beer!

 

I would

- cool the wort down 10-15 more degrees before you pitch, to 65-70

- put the fermenters in swamp coolers (assuming you don't have a temp-controlled fermentation chamber) to ensure that fermentation temps stay closer to around 65 F, and I'd use a fan or periodic additions of ice to further ensure that fermentation temps are in the mid 60s (at least through the first 4-5 days of vigorous fermentation)

Also, check that you are pitching enough yeast. Midwest gives you a choice of dry or liquid--if you went with liquid and didn't make a starter then you're underpitching, which may also be part of the problem.

(If you are pitching dry yeast then it's probably not an issue, Midwest moves plenty of product so I have full confidence their dry yeast is relatively fresh.)

 

I pitched yeast over 80deg on just the one batch, the rest i pitched around 75deg,and fermented all of them around 66-67deg,also I'm not going by room temp I'm going by my stick on fermometors,.....thanks again

 

do you bottle or keg? you could try a little experiment per this thread:
http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f39/headache-bottle-172549/

try putting 24 ounces or so on the stove and reach the boiling point for fusels (I forget the temp, like 160F maybe?). after a while, remove from heat and rekeg/cool/recarb and drink it . If you don't have a headache, that would point to fusels as the problem.
If you don't keg, then I suppose you could rebottle it (with a pinch of yeast), but then you'd have to wait a couple of weeks to drink it. Or drink it uncarbed just for this test.

If that works (no headache) then "boil" the whole batch.

 

Which liquid yeast from Midwest isn't enough? I don't know anything about the WL tubes, but if you're talking Wyeast, you're saying that a Wyeast smack pack isn't large enough for a 5 gallon batch? If that's the case, why wouldn't Midwest include instructions for using the smack pack to make a larger starter?

 

I don't keep the probe from my temp controller sitting in my fermenter, so I'm not sure what the temperature of the actual beer is. Is your lag time zero? Because you should have at least a few hours before fermentation begins, and that 80 degree beer isn't going to stay that way. In fact, I've done no-chill before and even fairly hot wort drops to room temp overnight.

Do you have a way to check the temperature of your beer while fermenting? If I have an ambient temp of 65, what temp would my beer be?

 

ive been using muntons and safale us-50

 

There's too many factors to predict with 100% accuracy what the temp difference between ambient and beer will be.

I find that with a starter at high krausen, I have a very short lag time before active fermentation (for sure less than 8 hours).

My big point was that if your pitching at 80, and your fermentation is fairly active, fairly early; the beer may never get to the ambient temp of 67.

And as they say - your mileage may vary...

In my situation, I like to pitch with the wort at 65, with an ambient temperature of 60, I'm usually fermenting at ~64-67...

 

stick on fermometor..sticks on side of fermenting bucket

 

And gives a temp halfway between the ambient and the beer.

 

so how do you go about getting a actual temp reading?

 

I wonder if something like my Snap On infra-red temp gun would give an accurate reading of beer temp, when pointed at the side of the fermenter?

 

I am amazed from time to time how homebrew does NOT cause a hangover for me.....EVER.

 

What is your general temps in fermenting and conditioning?

 

65-67

 

Your fermenting wayy too warm, pitch yeast @65F at the warmest. The beer will be ferementing 5-7degrees or more over ambient.

Not really and lets not forget some people are hyper sensitive to fusels(me).

 

Also consider using a blow-off tube. A lot of the brown stuff that forms on the top of the krausen consists of fusel alcohols and other assorted off-flavor compounds. You don't want this falling back into the beer.

I make enough wort and starter to fill to within a half-inch of the neck. Fit a tube into the stopper, put the other end in a container of sanitizer, and let it bubble away. You do lose about a quarter gallon of beer this way, but I consider that a worthy trade-off.

 

so my stick on fermentor is around 10 deg cooler than my actual wort?and i mostly use buckets so i guess a blow off tube wont work

 

If you're using a bucket you can skim the crap off the top of the krausen using a sanitized spoon. This is also a great way to harvest yeast for later use.

I doubt stick ons are that inaccurate. For example, I have a belgian blonde at high krausen right now. The ambient temp in my fermentation chamber is 66F, measured with an accurate thermometer. The stick on reads 68F, reasonable due to vigorous fermentation heat. I'd predict the actual wort temp is no more than 70F. Ultimately you don't know the difference without directly measuring the wort temp.

 

The stick on will read anywheres from 2-7F low everytime.


You mean like this?


I used to track the wort temps directly in the center, even in carboys.

 

for now on ill just reduce temps by around 5-10 deg lower and that should put me were i need to be,as far as the krausen goes when should it be skimmed off the wort

 

Ahhhhh.... good idea! I may convert one of my fermenters this way to see if I can peg the delta between the fermometer and the actual wort temp. How did you seal the hole for the thermometer? A bit of silicone?

 

Wrap some telfon tape and its good to go

 

I've been fortunate to not get headaches with my brew and I am on no 17. Yesterday I drank 4 of my most recent brew and got a headache, 24 hours later still have a slight headache, nothin seriouse, but I wonder if fussels got the best of me with this batch.

looking at my notes, I used a washed yeast on this one, pitched at 80 degrees and the temps where I was primary fermenting were fluctuant between 60 and 80 degrees. When I racked to my secondary the beer smelled like burned rubber that smell has disipated and the beer is quite good other than the headaches. 3.84% by weight.

Has anyone had this happen from these issues?

 

Non-technical question, but how many are you drinking at a time? 1,2,12,15? Just curious, maybe I missed it.

 

Those are some wide temperature fluctuations, and combined with the high pitching temp I think that is exactly what you are experiencing. Pitching at a high temp can cause the yeast to give off more fusels, and when the temperature swings the yeast go into heat-shock mode and spend more energy creating heat shock proteins than on fermenting the beer and/or cleaning up fermentation by products. Also, yeast will produce more fusels when you overpitch. Not saying you did in this case, but knowing you used washed yeast maybe there is the possibility overpitching is playing a factor as well?

 

earlier in the week I had 2 max it still had a green feel to it but (no headache) then I tasted it 3 days later and it was very good tasting, I couldnt stop at 1 lol! I drank 4 12 oz bottles within a 3 hour period, followed by some coffee, (16 oz)

I think I may have been low on H2O. I was going to try some last night, but didn't. I have a six pack in the fridge. I will find out tonight if its the beer or not. will drink a gallon of water between now and then.

I dont get headaches very often from anything. I wonder if I was coming down with a bug or somthing. I feel fine today! THNX

 

Krausen skimmed off the wort??? Don't do that.

 

I have the ferment chamber in the house now it was in the shed where the outside temps were getting so cold that it did no good to even have it out side. As for pitching too hot I didnt think that 80 was a big problem. It has been taking me quite a while to drop it from 220 to 80. I guess I need to add somthing to the cooling process like a tub of ice water along with the wort chiller. Im going to buy one of those big plastic tubs from sears and fill it with crushed homemade ice next time. thnx

my last batch was 80-90 degrees, but its been maintaining a 68 degree ferment for the past 3 days and I used a packet of yeast with a good 8 hour starter, as with all time will tell.

 

I'd say your stick on thermometers are about as accurate to the actual temperature of the beer as a cheap thermometer can be - certainly not 'half way' between the temp of the beer and the ambient temp. The liquid beer will have more influence on the temperature of the plastic/glass than air will because it conducts heat much better.