Am I worrying about nothing, or have I screwed the pooch?

[dawn_kiebawls]

Hey guys, I've got an attempt at what I hope to be a Belgian IPA in primary right now but I have a few concerns.

I made a 3L starter for WY3522 (I do not have a stir plate so it was shaken approximately every hour) and pitched into ~65F wort with an OG 1.073. It took off like a rocket, blew the top and subsided after 3 days. However, it has been in primary for a full week now and the airlock is still doing approximately 1 bubble a minute. Is this normal for such a highly attenuative yeast?

My real area of concern is that I have my primary bucket in a swamp cooler and other than looking at the airlock every couple of hours I have been ignoring it. I just checked the water temp and it is 80F!! The thermo strip on my bucket is reading ~83-85F which is the upper range given by Wyeast...

Have I screwed up by allowing it to get WAY to hot or is it alright given the variety of yeast? Also, I haven't ever had an active airlock for more than 2 days. Is a week normal??

Thanks for all the help

 

[Sailingeric]

If you were in the temp range for the first 3 day or so, you will be fine. That is when most of the fermentation happens.

 

[Kent88]

It has only been in primary a week? Give it another.

And when you bring up a specific yeast in the future, please link to a description of it, preferably from the yeast company's official description.

 

[dawn_kiebawls]

It has only been in primary a week? Give it another.

And when you bring up a specific yeast in the future, please link to a description of it, preferably from the yeast company's official description.

I was planning to have it in primary for 3 weeks because I am going to dry hop and to let it settle out since I am not racking to secondary. In the future I will definitely post a link to a description, thanks for the tip! I just checked your link and their website says 65-75 but the Wyeast chart at both of my LHBS says 65-85, I wonder if their posters are old/out of date. Either way, thanks for the response!

 

[Calder]

That's the Anchouffe yeast. You will be fine at those temps.

You started low and let it rise. That is the right thing to do with that yeast.

I regularly use the White Labs equivalent (WLP550) and take it up to 85 F to help it finish. I usually start stepping it up after 3 days and take a week to get there.

It will be fine.

 

[Duffman870727]

Yeast is "happy" around 80F, no worries about harming them, but there is a flavor impact towards your beer with an increase in fusel and ester production at high temps. Since you're brewing a Belgian, this might be ok for the style. Airlock activity could simply be CO2 coming out of solution due to the warmer temp, it's not a real indicator of fermentation. Pull a sample, check gravity, and do a sensory analysis to see if the beer got "hot" from excess fusel production. If you got "hot" fusels, there is nothing you can do about it (other than age for over a year to mellow them) but learn from it and control your temps better next time.