85 degree US-05 Fermentation Experiment

[Sharkman20]

I've got a pale ale in primary at the moment that fermented at about 85 degrees. Due to the 104+ heat wave and my curiosity/laziness, I made no effort to cool this batch off to be within normal fermentation temps. Mostly because my brew fridge is full of kegs at the moment and I don't feel like doing the ice bath/tshirt method. lol As I already missed my target gravity by 10 points due to a bonehead miscalculation of my batch size, I figure I'll do an experiment to see how US-05 performs at summertime room temps here. I've read about more fusels, esters, etc but no firsthand reports on taste. Yeast was pitched at 75 degrees and rose to about 85 during primary.

OG 1.046
2-row and crystal 60
5.5 oz of hops in the boil (cluster, cascade, liberty)
Mashed at 156 for 75 minutes

Primary fermentation kicked off in 2 hours and was done in 48 hours and is now beginning to clear. I'll take a gravity reading tonight and assuming fermentation wasn't stalled, I'll throw in 1 oz of cascade pellets and let it sit for another few weeks and let the yeast have a chance to clean up what they can. I already plan to rebrew this soon when I kill off some kegs in my fridge but in the meantime this should make for a good learning experience. I'm curious to see how a very clean yeast like US-05 performs at this temp and see if the final product will be good or even drinkable.

 

[TheJasonT]

My first batch ever I fermented at about 82 degrees with US-05 and it was full of diacetyl and fusels. Not pleasant.

 

[Travestian]

Good luck. I'm thinking it'll be a sink pour but could be interesting to find out.

 

[bgeek]

Did the same thing a couple of years back. Diacetyl out the rear. I'd let it sit in primary for at least a month (in a cooler spot if possible), dry hop for a week, then bottle keg.

 

[Ramitt]

Worth the experiment, looking forward to the results.

 

[Sharkman20]

I'm not too worried about how it comes out, as it's going to tell me the future feasibility of brewing in extreme heat and if it's really worth the time invested since I really have no dedicated cool fermentation chamber, and I'd much rather reschedule brewing than do ice baths and wet towels and whatnot to keep the temps down which has inconsistent results anyway. If I dump it in the end, so be it but the experimentation keeps me from getting too bored. lol

I'll definitely post the results up here though in any case.

 

[strambo]

I'm definitely interested in the results since I brew with US 05 and S 04 almost exclusively. I don't have a ferm chamber either, just use a water bath and ice bottles, gets kinda challenging in the summer.

 

[Sharkman20]

Cooling the wort after the boil was the real challenge when it was 106 outside. I recently bought a 50 foot stainless wort chiller since I'm removing all copper from my system. I turned my old 25 foot copper wort chiller into a prechiller, running it in line in a rubbermaid container full of 40 lbs of ice and water to chill the water before it enters the ss chiller. Worked very well and dropped the temp below 80 in less than 30 minutes. After 30 minutes though, the 40 pounds of ice was nearly gone from the sun.

 

[evancold]

Sounds like you need to brew a Saison

 

[Sharkman20]

Sounds like you need to brew a Saison

Seeing as how I've never brewed that style before, you may very well be right. lol

 

[jeremy0209]

Sounds like you need to brew a Saison

Yup, 3711 would be right at home....probably produce an award winner, too.

 

[Sharkman20]

It finished up at 1.010, and definitely has lost the "clean" attribute that US-05 is known for. All in all however, it does not taste bad. Not the best beer by a long shot I've ever made, but certainly not bad. I dropped 1.5oz of cascade in to dry hop while still in primary and I'll give it another couple weeks to give the yeast a chance to clean it up a bit more. I'm curious how it will taste after it's cleared and cold in the keg.

 

[VikingChrisColby]

I've had good luck with 1056/WLP001/US-05 fermenting at fairly high temperatures. If you pitch big, aerate well and start it around 70 °F, it can climb to the mid 80's after high kräusen and still produce a clean ale. If you underpitch and it starts warm, I doubt the result would be very good.


Chris Colby
Editor
beerandwinejournal.com

 

[strambo]

Nice! That's good to know. If it tastes decent now, it should be good with the dry hop and cold conditioning after letting the yeast finish up what they can for a couple more weeks.

 

[masskrug]

I've had good luck with 1056/WLP001/US-05 fermenting at fairly high temperatures. If you pitch big, aerate well and start it around 70 °F, it can climb to the mid 80's after high kräusen and still produce a clean ale. If you underpitch and it starts warm, I doubt the result would be very good.

Can you define, "Pitch big." Living in Florida this would make a world of difference for me. I could have several fermenters just sitting in my 78' house?

Two packets big enough? 200 ML of slurry?

 

[Sharkman20]

You don't need to "pitch big". All that does is give more yeast a chance to compete for the same amount of nutrients. When fermentation kicks off in 2 hours and finishes in 2 days for a 1.046 beer, they're working pretty efficiently and they are healthy. Whether or not they produce the alcohol we like to drink however, that is another story. lol

This was nothing more than an experiment which I had fully intended on dumping, however after my initial taste test it does have some potential. I'm sure the same beer fermented at 60 degrees would be much better, however this beer is not undrinkable. I'll check it again in a couple weeks.