Checking for off flavors while krausen present

[Argentum]

What are your thoughts on drawing a sample from under the krausen to see if my beer has off-flavors? Here's why I ask: I started fermenting a brown Ale with WLP051, a notoriously fickle yeast. I pitched five days ago at about 65-66 degrees and fear that the beer got too warm during the first 48 hours, which could if I'm not mistaken cause excessive esters and fusel alcohol. I assume those would be detectable even this early and so I'm thinking of drawing a sample to see how it's going.

I know, I know, patience is key, but I have a notion I might toss this batch and start anew if it's ruined, in which case, I'd prefer to know now.

 

[Grantman1]

My gut is to go with your point on patience, only because in my experience, until a beer is fully fermented (and often a bit past that) it can taste all sorts of strange or off-target, only to come out great in the end.

 

[55x11]

What are your thoughts on drawing a sample from under the krausen to see if my beer has off-flavors? Here's why I ask: I started fermenting a brown Ale with WLP051, a notoriously fickle yeast. I pitched five days ago at about 65-66 degrees and fear that the beer got too warm during the first 48 hours, which could if I'm not mistaken cause excessive esters and fusel alcohol. I assume those would be detectable even this early and so I'm thinking of drawing a sample to see how it's going.

I know, I know, patience is key, but I have a notion I might toss this batch and start anew if it's ruined, in which case, I'd prefer to know now.

my general feeling is that your plan is not going to be super-effective because the sweetness of the wort will hide a lot of flavors, and the yeast can clean up a lot of other flavors present in the beer, including some residual flavors.

Add to that that to most people, warm uncarbonated, and under-attenuated beer tastes horrible (while the same beer, cold, carbonated and fully attenuated tastes great). It's like selecting a single note of a violin from an orchestra while everyone is tuning their instruments in a giant cacophony at once, while everyone around you is talking loudly, and trying to figure out which violin is out of tune.

Unless you have been tasting your samples at this point for a long time and can recognize and project the taste of finished project, I would just wait. Besides, let's say it's the worst case scenario and you DO taste some hot alcohol or some esters. What are you going to do to remedy this problem? Just let it do its job and check the taste when the beer is done fermenting and conditioning.

 

[jerbrew]

I agree. Don't make any decisions before fermentation is done. I don't know if I've heard wlp051 is notoriously fickle. I've used it with great results twice YMMV of course. Don't give up before you even have a finished beer. You'll taste all kinds of crazy stuff while the Krausen is present.

 

[kh54s10]

I have always read that there are a lot of off flavors created by the yeast doing the fermentation and that in the ending stages the yeast clean up these off flavors. So taking a sample early could have off flavors that shouldn't be there when fermentation has finished.

You say you pitched at 65-66 and that the temperature got too high - how high. Optimum for that yeast is 66-70 degrees.

 

[Chrisbrewbeers]

I'm not even sure I'd trust the pre packaging hydrometer sample for that. The byproducts of fermentation are still present definitely at 48 hours. I would worry about it still being high temp at 72 hours more than 48 so better off if you got it down upon realization I think. I have had this happen to me.

 

[JonM]

Nothing good can come from taste tests during active fermentation - it won't taste like the final product, if you perceive something "wrong" you can't really "fix" it, etc.

Only bad things can happen - opportunity for infection, misguided attempts to "fix" a perceived problem that really isn't a problem, etc.

Just leave it be and try it in a couple weeks.

 

[Argentum]

I have always read that there are a lot of off flavors created by the yeast doing the fermentation and that in the ending stages the yeast clean up these off flavors. So taking a sample early could have off flavors that shouldn't be there when fermentation has finished.

You say you pitched at 65-66 and that the temperature got too high - how high. Optimum for that yeast is 66-70 degrees.

Don't know but my fear is anything above 70. One review said don't let the yeast get above 70, and I believe I've had major off flavors by fermenting this in the low to mid 70s so I really wanted to keep it at the low end of its range. At the time I turned down the temp the probe in my fermentation fridge read about 68.

That said, I have some hope that the wort was actually about the same (68) because I had the probe sitting between the carboy and back of the fridge. Since then I've gotten a couple additional thermometers and today I measured the temp of the wort and the space between the carboy and back of the fridge. Wort temp was the same as the probe now taped to the side of the carboy, and has been since I taped the probe. Temp behind the carboy was less than half a degree less than the wort/carboy.

My hope is that either the temp delta was not so great or that the five gallons of fermenting beer threw off enough heat that inside the fridge anything within a couple inches of the carboy would measure about the same as the wort.