Overheating in Secondary?

[Judochop]

Brewed a saison with Wyeast Belgian Saison strain and controlled fermentation starting around 68 and gradually bringing it up to 80 over the course of a couple weeks.

All was going well. Sample was good. It hadn't quite reached FG, but was close (~1.012).

Then it went to secondary where I applied a fermwrap heater and covered with a blanket, and it stayed there for a few weeks.

I don't know how hot it got in there but it was over 80 (the extent of my tape thermometer) and it felt very vey warm to the touch. Now the beer smells very bubblegum-like and tastes over-phenolic. I don't think it's a product of fermentation since that was already pretty much complete before secondary. I'm afraid I actually/literally 'cooked' the finished beer or yeast in secondary.

Anybody have any knowledge and/or experience with this? How hot can beer-on-yeast get before damaging effects?

 

[pcqypcqy]

How did this end up going - did you dump it?

I found that I had left the temp probe outside of my ferm chamber overnight on a cold night, so the light bulb heater ran for at least 24 hours.

When I found it it was 50 degrees C, and the airlock at gone very soft and melty. Still holding pressure though.

I might taste it just for ****s and giggles, but was considering dumping it anyway as I think it had some off flavours beforehand.

Mine was an APA, had finished primary ferment and I had just added the dry hops (in fact this is what I had been doing when I left the probe outside).

 

[Judochop]

How did this end up going - did you dump it?

No, I didn't. It's on tap now, as a matter of fact. But there is excessive fruitiness overpowering the natural spiciness of the Saison yeast. It was never undrinkable, but unfortunately neither is it the Saison that it would have been if treated better in secondary.

Conventional wisdom says that the yeast profile is pretty much set after the first few days of fermentation, but it seems to be the case that even those last few gravity points of fermentation can have a major impact on flavor if carried out through extreme conditions. Lesson learned.

It's been on tap for 5 weeks now, and I think it's starting to mellow out just a little bit. I'm not proud of it, but I'm going to have no problem finishing it.

 

[pcqypcqy]

I just tasted mine. Not definitively bad, but not great. I suspect that's mostly to do with the problems that occured before it was cooked.

Had a funny caramel sort of flavour which you might expect. Also a tea sort of an aroma, from the dry hopping no doubt.

Like my other bad brews, it's not bad enough to warrant an instant dumping, but as I'm learning I've decided that if you have to force yourself to drink it, may as well dump it early and save the bottling/kegging effort.