Well hell...

[hawkbox]

I'm discovering the extreme heat here has finally made it into my basement. I chilled my Erdinger clone to 19C(66F) before pitching yeast yesterday and I normally only gain 2-4f over the first 24 hours. I got home from work and it's sitting at 80F right now, which is probably not going to be great for the beer.

If I did an emergency cool in a tub would that help it or is it basically to late if it's been at 80F for say 8 hours or so? I'm idly curious what flavours the Danstar Munich Wheat yeast will throw off as I can't find anything on google about it, just people being smarmy at new brewers for letting the temperature rise.

 

[Dcpcooks]

You can bring it down in a tub of cool water. Drape a towel or shirt over it and the evaporation will help keep it cool. Keep in mind fermentation creates heat during active fermentation.

You’ll probably see some fruity eaters and possibly some fusel alcohol from the high fermentation temps. The first three days are most important for temp control as that’s when ester and phenolic reactions occur at the highest rates.

You’ll probably have a drinkable beer.

 

[hawkbox]

I'll do that, I was more curious if it was to late as it ramped up faster than anything I've seen in the last year of brewing. I normally gain significantly less heat over a longer period of time. Hopefully 8 hours isn't to bad for it.

 

[hawkbox]

Not my finest work...

 

[Tribe Fan]

You'll probably love this beer and be mad you cannot duplicate it later.

 

[Jayjay1976]

Yeah I'm sure it will turn out just fine. If that is a t-shirt I recommend straightening it out, put it on your fermenter with the spout sticking out the neck hole and smooth it out as best you can to a single layer of fabric for most effective cooling. The way it's laying now you're both insulating and trying to cool at the same time. You want the heat from the beer to be pulled through the fabric so it can escape with evaporation.

 

[kh54s10]

From 66 to 80 should have taken some time so it wasn't at 80 for very long. If it was at the beginning of the fermentation it was also not hot for long while fermenting. If you got the temperature down fairly quickly, I doubt that it will be bad.

 

[Bamos6928]

I had the same thing happen to me once with an Irish Red Ale. The beer turned out pretty good, but there were definitely some off flavors in the beer. Most of my friends didn't even notice them, but I did. The next thing I did was get an old refrigerator and a temp. controller.

 

[hawkbox]

I'll fix the shirt when I get home tonight, the temp dropped pretty quick when I dumped ice in the water so hopefully no damage done. It was still chugging away this morning, albeit slower than before.

 

[shoengine]

I use an old window AC unit for my ales, and have a freezer for my lagers. Doesn't help you now, but as most say, temp control is one of the first big improvements to the process of any brewer.

I don't know about that specific strain, or your hopping schedule, but wheat ales and esters can be truly complementary. 80F is going to be interesting...

 

[hawkbox]

The Danstar Munich Wheat Beer yeast is what I used. A chamber for temp control has been on my list a while but my basement has historically been more than adequate for my needs, occasionally I've needed to apply heat so it wasn't a high priority. Seems like now I need to take it more seriously.