fermenter at 110 F.

[felonyflats]

I was so excited to use my new temp controlled fermentation chamber for a repeat brew of a recent apa that came out well. All good for 10 days...I checked yesterday, and it was still cloudy and not quite where the gravity needed to be. Apparently, when I checked, the temp sensor got ripped off the fermenter... Fell out of the chamber and into the cold fall air. My heat pad tried to heat continually. Today the beer was at 110, slightly above the recommended max of 72 for the CA Ale yeast. I know there will be and are off flavors... Esters. Hot alcohol... But I have 2 questions about trying to fix this: 1) do I need to get it off the current yeast? 2) any recommendations for additions? I was thinking of throwing into a secondary with a Belgian yeast and some spices but not sure what might counter the Esters best. The recipe had a little wheat malt and
very little bittering hops. Any thoughts or recommendations are appreciated.

 

[boydster]

Fermentation was likely complete after 10 days, so you might be ok. Have you tasted it? 110° is getting way up there for yeast tolerance though. You might think about adding a small amount of yeast for bottling, just in case it got a little warmer than 110 at its peak and killed the yeast.

 

[felonyflats]

Thanks for replying. I definitely taste off flavors, but it is not sooo bad that I am going to dump it yet. In this circumstance it was not done fermenting, which is probably a whole separate issue. It still has a slightly sweet flavor. I definitely want it to continue fermenting. So will my current yeast be okay to finish the job or should I repitch? If repitch, should I use a different kind of yeast to help balance out what has happened?

 

[boydster]

Take a gravity reading today, and another the day after tomorrow. If they are the same, your yeast is either dead or dormant. If that is the case, and the gravity is higher than the target, make a starter with new yeast and pitch it at high krausen so it is already active and eating wort sugars before you dump it into a hostile environment like beer that already has alcohol present and very low oxygen.

 

[FRS]

If you can cold crash, I might do that first to help drop any dead or stressed yeast before racking it.

Best of luck!

 

[felonyflats]

The follow up:

Thanks for the replies. I also talked to the guy at the local homebrew shop, and he was worried about relying on the yeast cells that survived. I can't remember exactly why, but he was worried that they may have been affected by the heat, and recommended getting rid of as much existing yeast as possible, even if it is still alive. So, I ended up cold-crashing, transferring to a new fermenter and added some fresh yeast to finish the job. It came out drinkable, but didn't drop down to the gravity I was expecting. I wonder if dropping hydrated s-05 yeast into mostly fermented beer (5% or so would be my guess) might have been to strenuous for it to take off.

So, the beer came out somewhat sweeter and thicker than last time, with more haze, and a little bit of something off in the yeast flavor. But, I figured it was destroyed, and it came out much closer than I thought it would. Once again, despite my attempts to stress out about it, I can still "relax and have a homebrew."

 

[Cyclman]

If a beer is underattenuated, pitching a starter at high kraeusen can do the trick. It could also clean up off flavors. If the heat autolyzed your beer (yeast death causing them to "spit out" nasties) there's probably not much to do, but a little bit off doesn't sound like autolysis (many homebrewers believe autolysis to be a myth in homebrew sized batches).