Sonsofsummer
Member
- Joined
- Oct 21, 2020
- Messages
- 8
- Reaction score
- 3
Brewed a red ale about two days ago.
Following the boil, I cooled to about 60f, oxygenated the wort (7.75 gallons, 1.052) and pitched 1000ml starter (WL San Diego Super)
My plan was to pitch cooler and bring the temp up to the recommended range of 66-68f, which worked great for the first 2 days.
Here’s where it all went wrong...
I’m pretty new to brewing but have realized that temp control is important. So I built a pseudo glycol chiller using a bar fridge, copper coil, stainless coil (in the fermenter), and a submersible pump which pumps glycol from a reservoir in the fridge. Setup is controlled by an ink bird.
To make a long story short, it’s my first time using the new setup. I accidentally set the fridge to what I thought was the lowest setting, but was actually the off setting.
Well, the inkbird kicked on and triggered the pump and continued to run with no cooling in the fridge. The heat from the pump heated the glycol and when I woke up and checked on it, the inkbird showed 87.5f as the current temp..
I managed to cool the fermenter back to 70f within an hour using the pump and two HD buckets (don’t know if this swing may have made things worse)
The fermenter was likely at these temps or above 70f for a maximum of 3-4 hours.
Aside from off flavors from esters, is this beer going to have a bunch of fusel alcohols now?
Pretty disappointing as everything was going well with this batch.
TL;DR: I screwed up with my chiller during fermentation and the fermenter went as hot as 88f for 3-4 hours, and now I’m worried that my beer is ruined.
Following the boil, I cooled to about 60f, oxygenated the wort (7.75 gallons, 1.052) and pitched 1000ml starter (WL San Diego Super)
My plan was to pitch cooler and bring the temp up to the recommended range of 66-68f, which worked great for the first 2 days.
Here’s where it all went wrong...
I’m pretty new to brewing but have realized that temp control is important. So I built a pseudo glycol chiller using a bar fridge, copper coil, stainless coil (in the fermenter), and a submersible pump which pumps glycol from a reservoir in the fridge. Setup is controlled by an ink bird.
To make a long story short, it’s my first time using the new setup. I accidentally set the fridge to what I thought was the lowest setting, but was actually the off setting.
Well, the inkbird kicked on and triggered the pump and continued to run with no cooling in the fridge. The heat from the pump heated the glycol and when I woke up and checked on it, the inkbird showed 87.5f as the current temp..
I managed to cool the fermenter back to 70f within an hour using the pump and two HD buckets (don’t know if this swing may have made things worse)
The fermenter was likely at these temps or above 70f for a maximum of 3-4 hours.
Aside from off flavors from esters, is this beer going to have a bunch of fusel alcohols now?
Pretty disappointing as everything was going well with this batch.
TL;DR: I screwed up with my chiller during fermentation and the fermenter went as hot as 88f for 3-4 hours, and now I’m worried that my beer is ruined.