Yeast gone wild!!

[HAMMERDOWN]

Hi guys, new here to the forums, been home brewing for about a year now and love it!

I have a question, I have made about 6 batches from extract and (most) of them have turned out really good so far. BUT, this time I tried to make a honey wheat, I started with a proven wheat kit from the local home brew shop, and added a pound of local honey to the last 15 minutes of the boil. Here starts the problem, and I know its omy own fault. I let the wort cool down to about 100f and pitched my yeast (to hot I know but I was rushed for time) and within an hour I had bubbling in my airlock. The next day I went to check on it and the yeast had over flowed out of the air lock and was everywhere! I cleaned everything up and cleaned the airlock out and replaced it on the fermenting bucket, with in an hour it had done it again. This continued for 4 DAYS!! I babysat this beer for a week and racked it into the carboy and now nothing.

do you think its OK? Did the extra sugars from the honey cause this explosion? or was it the temp at pitch? or both? Is my beer gonna be junk?

I am going to start a re-brew of it this weekend and dont want to make the same mistake again.

Thanks

 

[JOHN51277]

The higher temps definitely will make the yeasties more active. It also being a wheat beer, will cause a very active fermentation. Find a blow off hose and run it to a small bucket full of sanitizer to avoid all the babysitting of the beer. It will make wheat beers more friendly!

 

[HAMMERDOWN]

what is pitching at 100 instead of 70 going to do to the beer?

did all of my yeast blow out of the top?

 

[BeerJorge]

Pitching at 100 will get your yeast to start reproducing faster if you didn't kill them... I'm sure you didn't ferment at that temperature, but fermenting at higher temperatures will create excessive by-products (mostly diacetyl) and can ruin the flavor of your beer.

I don't think all your yeast blew out of the top...

Beer Fermentation Temperature & Process

 

[CortexBomb]

I had a similar adventure when I made a Hefe using about 5 pounds of wheat and a couple of pounds of honey. My understanding is that both wheat and honey create very active fermentation, and that putting them together is basically a recipe for a blow off.

 

[HAMMERDOWN]

I had a similar adventure when I made a Hefe using about 5 pounds of wheat and a couple of pounds of honey. My understanding is that both wheat and honey create very active fermentation, and that putting them together is basically a recipe for a blow off.

Like I said its only my 6th batch, but so far this is the first time there has been any yeast blow off.

It must have firmented b/c its basically doing nothing in the carboy. Its been in there for a week, I am thinking I'll leave it in there for another 4 or 5 days then bottle.

 

[CortexBomb]

I think I let my Hefe sit for about 2.5 weeks from brew to bottle. I just bottled it last night and it already tastes extremely good, even without carbonation or final yeast cleanup.

I think, based on what I've read and seen, that you just have to take some blow off for granted with those particular ingredients unless you want to under-size the batches. I have over a gallon of head space in my primary, but the Hefe chewed that up in no time.

The friendly folks on the forum suggested to me then that using a converted 3 piece airlock with a 5/16" hosing connected to it would work as an effective blow off tube. You pretty much have to resign that equipment to permanent blowoff status after that, but it's a cheap blow off solution and it gives peace of mind.

Keeping fermentation temperatures down as much as possible will also keep the fermentation from being quite as aggressive. Though I had mine at minimum recommended and it still blew up.

 

[BeerJorge]

Did you do any gravity readings?

 

[Jewrican]

+1 to what has been said

It took me several batches to realize how important temperature control is to making great beers.

It will be drinkable for sure, but next time get that wort down to pitching (fermenting) temperatures. Look up swamp cooler, sofc (son of fermentation chamber), or other methods to keep your temps down especially in the summer.

 

[MetallHed]

my latest batch is a weiss and it blew krausen out the airlock. After the first time I rigged up a blow off the same way cortex did.. no problem after that. After the activity settled down I put the airlock back in with vodka and it was fine. I put in some lemon zest and will be letting it sit for another week before bottling.

I pitched at 76F and it still was very active.. it's a wheat beer thing!

 

[ekranzusch]

An airlock + wheat situation will eventually lead to mopping the ceiling. Blowoff tube FTW!

If you're using a bucket fermenter go to the LHBS and pick up a 3 piece airlock if you don't already have one you can use. You only need the base of it, and pick up tubing that fits the center tube of the airlock, it's roughly the same size as racking tubing, I don't remember exactly. Also you'll want to cut off the bottom 1/2 inch or so of the airlock base with a hacksaw or something, I am not sure what it's supposed to be like a strainer or something but it really just gets plugged and leads to problems. Straight pipe that baby!!

Carboys are a lot easier to use blowoff tubes than buckets.

The pitching temp didn't help things much, but on the plus side you definately didn't kill your yeast.

What temp was your fermenter at during all of this? Depending on the yeast strain and what it's tolerances are you might get some off flavors like dicetyl and esters and also fusels from that.

Most of this was probably from your recipe, wheat and honey make for some crazy yeast times.

 

[HAMMERDOWN]

My fermentation temp was 77*. Next time I am using the blow off bucket. The wife had a fit and the spare room still smells like beer....which is ok with me.

 

[HAMMERDOWN]

Going to bottle this weekend, sneak another little taste. I'll post up how it comes out.

Kinda dark in color.....

 

[HAMMERDOWN]

Well finially tried it last night, it didnt carbonate. Guess I lost to much yeast. It had a really good flavor though, probably one of the best beers I've made to date. If it just would have carbonated.

Any chance of saving it somehow? or is it lost?

 

[Jewrican]

that is kinda weird... you added priming sugar before bottling correct?

Even if you cold crash the heck out of beers and let them sit for months, there is enough yeast to carbonate the bottles.

Tell us your procedure for bottling if you dont mind.

 

[HAMMERDOWN]

Washed and sterilized all everything, made up the priming sugar and added it to the bottling bucket, then tranfered the beer from the carboy to the bucket. Filled the bottles, capped them off and set them in the spare room for 2 1/2 weeks.

Same thing i've done with all of the beers I've made so far... I dunno what happened.