how hot is too hot

[tellish33]

I made a simple hefe two weeks ago and everything was great. The temp was perfect. Then I went out of town for 4 days and my house got hot as hell (wife doesn't like the a/c). I looked at the temp on the side of the bucket and it was above 82 because the sticker had no reading on it. Today it was 81. Is my beer ruined before I got a chance to bottle it or what? Thanks a lot for the help. I hope its not ruined.

 

[homebrewdad]

It's not ruined, but you'll get some esters - and at those temps - probably some fusel alcohols. Be prepared to let this batch age longer than normal so that your yeast have some chance to clean up those flavors a bit. This may even end up being a batch you have to sit back in a closet for a few months.

 

[tellish33]

Cool. That's good to hear its not ruined. Thx.

 

[homebrewdad]

Cool. That's good to hear its not ruined. Thx.

Reading again, let me check - did the temperature spike happen after regular fermentation was done? If so, you will be just fine; off flavors are produced during active fermentation (those first 3-5 days of serious bubbling for most beers). If gravity was already stable when the temps spiked, you probably won't even notice a difference.

 

[tellish33]

Fermentation was done. I was just not able to bottle yet. So should I still bottle and let it sit awhile longer than normal?

 

[Andrew5329]

Yeah, as the other's have said, if the yeast did the vast majority their business before the temperature spike you shouldn't have any significant off flavors be fine. Bottle it and do your first taste on your normal schedule, it should taste fine, on the off chance it tastes funny just let it age for a month or two in your basement before you give it to your friends.

 

[homebrewdad]

Fermentation was done. I was just not able to bottle yet. So should I still bottle and let it sit awhile longer than normal?

Bottle as normal, drink as normal. If you get any strange flavors, sure, let it sit - but I'm betting that you will be just fine.

 

[Wreck99]

I had a similiar question. One of my beers was 77F during active fermentation, and therefore went super crazy for a lower gravity beer (OG was 1.052) in my past experience. I decided to put it in the cool part of my basement and got it down to below 72F over the course of a couple days. It's now been sitting at 70F, but its been in there almost a week already. Should I plan to leave it sit there longer? I really need to make a ferment-gerator lol