Made a 5 gallon pacific coast IPA, and I’m worried my temp was too high for the first day and a half

[italianorose]

I brewed a 5 gallon batch, and honestly I have been brewing good tasting beer since I started in January. I follow all directions (I am not good enough for all grain), and I sanitize very thoroughly. I even temp control to the best of my ability. However, this batch is my kryptonite and literally everything went wrong in brew day from accidentally dropping a wrapper from LME in my wort during brewing (bad can, had trouble opening and ripped paper). I couldn’t cool wort down even with my ice bath so I ended up sitting there for like three hours watching baseball waiting for it to cool, when it got to 70 degrees I pitched my yeast and called it a night. It got very late.

So that all happened Tuesday evening (brew day) Thursday morning, we have a bad heat wave in WI that caught me off guard. My house temp reads 70 degrees, but my ambient temp thermometer read 80. It doesn’t feel 80 in here but that’s what it read. I noticed condensation inside of my fermenter and freaked out. So I took my fermenter to the basement (it’s very heavy and my stairs are steep, which was my first mistake just not touching it out and not taking it downstairs to begin with). I usually do, but this one scared me.

Now here I am Thursday morning, ambient temperature reads 65 degrees, and I have a cold towel wrapped around fermenter in my basement. Do any of you think my IPA will be okay, have fusels or any esters I should be concerned with? I took the airlock and blow off tube off so I could transport the wort downstairs, and I smelt it to see if it smelt alright and it did smell great. Actually really good. I am just nervous. All my batches blow the blow off tube off and they all turned out great and I love giving them away because I’m proud of the quality. This one is fermenting quick and it’s just scaring me. Did I temp control too late?

Note, it hasn’t been 80 the whole time upstairs. Today was the hottest it got. It always read 70-75 upstairs and today is when I saw the condensation and freaked out.

Thank you, it’s all a learning experience right?

 

[marc1]

I brewed a 5 gallon batch, and honestly I have been brewing good tasting beer since I started in January. I follow all directions (I am not good enough for all grain), and I sanitize very thoroughly. I even temp control to the best of my ability. However, this batch is my kryptonite and literally everything went wrong in brew day from accidentally dropping a wrapper from LME in my wort during brewing (bad can, had trouble opening and ripped paper). I couldn’t cool wort down even with my ice bath so I ended up sitting there for like three hours watching baseball waiting for it to cool, when it got to 70 degrees I pitched my yeast and called it a night. It got very late.

So that all happened Tuesday evening (brew day) Thursday morning, we have a bad heat wave in WI that caught me off guard. My house temp reads 70 degrees, but my ambient temp thermometer read 80. It doesn’t feel 80 in here but that’s what it read. I noticed condensation inside of my fermenter and freaked out. So I took my fermenter to the basement (it’s very heavy and my stairs are steep, which was my first mistake just not touching it out and not taking it downstairs to begin with). I usually do, but this one scared me.

Now here I am Thursday morning, ambient temperature reads 65 degrees, and I have a cold towel wrapped around fermenter in my basement. Do any of you think my IPA will be okay, have fusels or any esters I should be concerned with? I took the airlock and blow off tube off so I could transport the wort downstairs, and I smelt it to see if it smelt alright and it did smell great. Actually really good. I am just nervous. All my batches blow the blow off tube off and they all turned out great and I love giving them away because I’m proud of the quality. This one is fermenting quick and it’s just scaring me. Did I temp control too late?

Note, it hasn’t been 80 the whole time upstairs. Today was the hottest it got. It always read 70-75 upstairs and today is when I saw the condensation and freaked out.

Thank you, it’s all a learning experience right?

By "ambient temp thermometer" do you mean the thermometer attached to your fermenter, or is it actually a thermometer measuring air temp in the room you were fermenting in? Fermentation will generate heat, so the beer can get decently warmer than the room temp it is in. Generally, the goal is to control the temperature of the fermenting beer, not the room, but the beer temp can be somewhat controlled by the room temp.

 

[marc1]

Also, everyone makes mistakes, most aren't a big deal, but they can be a pain in the butt. Be thankful this wasn't a messy mistake

Take it all as a learning experience and enjoy!

 

[spittiz]

Relax, we all have brew days like that sometimes. A few weeks ago I brewed a batch and put the fermentation vessel into my chest freezer that I use for temp control, left it there and didn't check it fort two days. When I did check on it, I realized I had forgot to plug the freezer into the inkbird thermostat, meaning it had plowed through most of the fermentation without temp control, probably nice and hot inside that chest freezer. Oh well.

Condensation inside the fermenter is nothing to freak out over. You beer will probably be fine, you didn't say what yeast you used, but it might just be a bit fruitier than you intended. You can take this as a chance to evaluate how much the fermentation temp matters with this particular recipe.

One note for the future, generally you want to avoid steep drops in temperature DURING fermentation, it might stall the yeast.

 

[Brushwood Brewing]

This happened to me last year with a porter. I was hoping to keep fermentation around 68F, but I saw it got up to 80-82 at one point. I didn't have temperature control, and was surprised at how hot the basement got. Fearing the worst of stalled fermentations and high temp off flavors, I was pretty concerned about it at the time. That being said, it turned out just fine.

Yeast are more forgiving than we give them credit for. Relax, don't worry, and have a homebrew.

 

[Brews and Blues]

If it makes the OP feel better, I too have dropped the wrapper from the LME in my brew. One of my first brews, I ran the can under hot water to loosen the LME. Well, that made the wrapper slippery and it slipped right off and into the brew. Oh well... it continued to boil I'm sure that killed anything weird in there. Beer turned out just fine.

 

[hotbeer]

All you can do is let it finish and see what it taste like after you bottle or keg it and it's carbonated and conditioned.

It'll probably be much better than the doom and gloom you are thinking it to be. If it is bad, well, you learned something...hopefully.

So just drink up any of your other beers you still have in the house or go get a six pack and bring home.