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Cooling it from 79* to 72* is a pretty sizable drop once fermentation is active and you might have put a lot of the yeast to sleep. I'd rouse them a few times and then let it sit at room temp after a week or so just to make sure you won't have bottle bombs. Such a big temperature change can also cause the yeast to put out more off-flavors by stressing them out.
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Aug 2, 2012 00:42
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indigi posted:Cooling it from 79* to 72* is a pretty sizable drop once fermentation is active and you might have put a lot of the yeast to sleep. I'd rouse them a few times and then let it sit at room temp after a week or so just to make sure you won't have bottle bombs. Such a big temperature change can also cause the yeast to put out more off-flavors by stressing them out. I gotta disagree indigi. I'd say he did the right thing to drop the temp ASAP. Fermenting at 79* with 90% of yeasts is going to give you a beer that tastes more like rubbing alcohol than a red ale. I've dropped the temp 15* in one day on a fresh fermentation. The yeast stalled for a day or two then woke up and finished the job. Only a couple yeasts strains are so finicky that they won't recover from temp drops and require additional yeast. To be clear: fermenting at 79* is way worse than dropping temp from 79* to 72* or even 62* To the poster brewing the beer under discussion, cool it down further if you can! 66* is a good temperature for almost all ale yeasts. Beer fermented above 70* tastes like it was fermented above 70*.
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Aug 2, 2012 04:58
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You're free to disagree, but it's a fact.
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Aug 2, 2012 06:29
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I personally think you're all overreacting. It will still taste pretty good, just a little less clean than optimal. I'm not sitting in his living room to confirm this, but I sincerely doubt it's going to taste like rubbing alcohol. If the temps being 8 degrees too high caused ales to taste like disinfectant, there wouldn't be many home brewers because 99% of first time homebrewers (and hell, probably just homebrewers in general) have no clue what temperature control entails, much less what it does. I honestly believe most homebrewers just ferment batches in the closet and don't ever consider what the temps are and their beers are fine. It's the dude's first brew, not an entry into the NHC. Angry Grimace fucked around with this message at 09:01 on Aug 2, 2012 |
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Aug 2, 2012 08:58
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While it will most likely turn out to be beer, (water, sugar, hops and yeast REALLY want to become beer when you put them all together) you just have to worry about forming fusel alcohols An IPA I made a couple batches ago without temperature control fermented around 70-72 ambient temperature and while it was drinkable, it gave me the worst headache after just a pint of it.
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Aug 2, 2012 13:11
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lazerwolf posted:While it will most likely turn out to be beer, (water, sugar, hops and yeast REALLY want to become beer when you put them all together) you just have to worry about forming fusel alcohols I assume that doesn't apply to yeasts intended to ferment high (assuming you're still within the yeast's correct range), like Wyeast #3725 or whatever the successor strain is? Session and bier de garde stuff, where it's supposed to run 70F to 80F+.
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Aug 2, 2012 13:28
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Splizwarf posted:I assume that doesn't apply to yeasts intended to ferment high (assuming you're still within the yeast's correct range), like Wyeast #3725 or whatever the successor strain is? Session and bier de garde stuff, where it's supposed to run 70F to 80F+. It doesn't. I was cranking out a ton of batches to get caught up in June and my fermentation freezer only holds 2 buckets so I did several batches at room temp which was an ambient of 74*. For those batches I used Wyeast French Saison and Biere de Garde strains. I did 4 batches like that and they fermented up to 78* and all came out fantastically.
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Aug 2, 2012 14:11
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What yeast would you guys recommend a stout that will ferment between 75º-80º? I have no way of controlling the temperature in my apartment, and the air temperature is routinely in the 80s.
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Aug 2, 2012 14:40
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If your apartment is 80*, the fermentation will push the temperature of the beer up to around 85*, and there aren't really any non-belgian strains that will work well at that temperature. You basically have three options, 1) buy a fridge 2) submerge your fermentation vessel in water and rotate frozen plastic water bottles several times a day 3) make a saison, which likes high temperatures
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Aug 2, 2012 14:47
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CalvinDooglas posted:What yeast would you guys recommend a stout that will ferment between 75º-80º? I have no way of controlling the temperature in my apartment, and the air temperature is routinely in the 80s. I found a 20+ gallon rubbermaid storage bucket for $10. Place fermentor in the bucket with water at least up to the level of the beer and add ice every so often to keep it cool. Works wonders and is dirt cheap
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Aug 2, 2012 14:56
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Detective Thompson posted:Nah, not a tin sign, the ones I'm talking about are much smaller and are usually tacked up on rafters or support beams. Your "little brassy things" are, in fact, horse brasses. Pubs that want to give an old-fashioned English atmosphere for tourists will throw a few on the walls. This is how they look on the horse: 
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Aug 2, 2012 15:05
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drat those horses are more aristocratic than I'll ever be.
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Aug 2, 2012 16:07
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RiggenBlaque posted:If your apartment is 80*, Yeah, this what I ended up deciding on. I'm going to brew a saison with an American-ish hop profile. I'm doing a Boil in Bag around 150º - how long should I let the grains steep? Saaz for 90 min, and some Chinook added continuously from 60-30 min, then a little Cascade for 30, and then finish with some Wilamette for aroma. Will the Chinook make it too oily?
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Aug 2, 2012 16:43
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CalvinDooglas posted:Yeah, this what I ended up deciding on. I'm going to brew a saison with an American-ish hop profile. I'm doing a Boil in Bag around 150º - how long should I let the grains steep? Mash lower. Saisons are all about getting a super dry finish so shoot for 147-149 to give you more fermentable sugars. Saaz is a really low alpha hop and really has no place as a bittering hop outside of traditional Czech pilsners. If you're set on using those hops, I'd bitter with a really small amount of the Chinook and add the rest of the hops in the last 15 minutes or so. Chinook has a somewhat harsh bittering profile (think Arrogant Bastard) so it's probably going to completely overpower the saison yeast characteristics if you use more than a half ounce or so. If you're looking to do an American hopped saison, I would probably use more delicate and fruity varieties to compliment the yeast. Willamette and Cascade are great, but Chinook is a piney and resinous motherfucker and seems kind of out of place in this recipe. You might want to switch it out for something like Amarillo or Citra.
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Aug 2, 2012 17:17
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I suspected as much. Thanks! The Saaz also looked little weird in the recipe, as I usually associate it with skunky lagers. Subbed with East Kent Golding, and Citra for bittering (90 and 60 min), and then aromatizing with Willamette and Cascade throughout the last 15 min.
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Aug 2, 2012 17:49
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indigi posted:Such a big temperature change can also cause the yeast to put out more off-flavors by stressing them out. indigi posted:You're free to disagree, but it's a fact. What? I agree with you that a huge drop in temp (7* is not huge btw) can cause off flavors. In his case it's irrelevant because fermenting at 79* during primary will absolutely make fusel alcohol off flavors, so worrying about off flavors from cooling would be foolish. I have dropped the temp on many beers, each time they simply cool down and conitinue to ferment as normal. I have never had a noticeable off flavor from chilling yeast. I've also never had yeast stall/die out. Every time I have fermented [regular ales] above 72* the beer become undrinkable. Now I am very picky with beer and food so it's possible that others would still enjoy the beer, but I like my beer to be better than similar commercial beers. If you read my post above yours a little more thoroughly you will find I gave examples and even listed exceptions to the statements I made. For all new brewers: Temperature control is the single most important variable in brewing. The yeast makes the beer. In my two short years I've made almost every brewing mistake: mashed way too hot, boiled for 90 min with the lid on, aerated while the wort was extremely hot, dropped the temp extremely quickly during fermentation (started a lager at 77* and crashed it to 55* the same day, fermentation paused for a day then kicked back into gear), stuck a dirty hand/spoon into sterile wort because I dropped something, skipped diacetyl rest on Munich lager yeast, left beer in primary (on the yeast) for 6 months, pitched yeast dozens of times with no starters, pitched year old washed yeast with no starter, I've taken 48 hours to cool a batch without pitching yeast, etc, etc. According to the literature, all those mistakes could have and should have ruined the beer. In fact the ONLY things that ruined the batch were fermenting too hot. The fusels NEVER go away. I made a helles (ironically I think it was indigi's recipe) w/out diacetyl rest. For 2 months the beer had a fruity nose and was more like a light ale than a lager. I took the keg out and let it sit at room temp for 3 months and it cleaned up to a delicious, delicate helles. Rapidly cooling the yeast shouldn't even be on the list of Bad Things to do to your beer. I'd be more concerned with DMS and autolysis, which frankly don't exist in the homebrewing world.
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Aug 2, 2012 19:45
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Well here's what I ended up getting for my American Saison:code:CalvinDooglas fucked around with this message at 20:29 on Aug 2, 2012 |
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Aug 2, 2012 20:21
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I wouldn't bother. There's little to be gained from the cooler end of the mash unless you specifically bought undermodified malt that requires a protein rest or something. And if your stove sucks and takes forever to get it up to 147ish, it could actually hurt body and head retention by breaking down proteins too far as it sits in the 120-130 range.
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Aug 2, 2012 20:33
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CalvinDooglas posted:Well here's what I ended up getting for my American Saison: It's tough to tell because its not a 5 gallon grain bill, but I'd pull back on that Victory big time. That accounts for almost 25% of your grain bill, which is way too high for a roasted malt, I wouldn't even put a pound of roast into a 5 gallon batch of saison.
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Aug 2, 2012 21:10
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Yeah I wouldn't use victory for color in a saison either. Maybe a pinch of something like carafa though that gives off a reddish color also not typical of a saison. A few ounces of some dark crystal may be the best option if you want to add color. Saison's are typically all pilsner and wheat, and are usually very pale straw in color, but I understand the desire to freestyle a little and do what you want - adding some color/maltiness is not going to ruin it.
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Aug 2, 2012 21:24
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I think something like Munich would be best, it would add some color and complexity without adding any large amount of unfermentables.
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Aug 2, 2012 21:28
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I agree Munich makes a lot of sense but problem with munich for color is even if you can get the German dark grade it's only 20L meaning it would end up being a larger portion of a grist which should be just pilsner and wheat as far as flavor.
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Aug 2, 2012 21:39
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oh well, I'm not too worried about it being within the style strictly. I'm going for a strong hop profile and around 8% abv, so maybe a darker malt will complement that.
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Aug 2, 2012 21:56
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I bet subbing Vienna for all the pilsner would work fantastic for a saison
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Aug 3, 2012 01:04
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Yeah, but that much isn't just going to be out of style its going to be pretty dang sweet because of the unfermentable sugars.
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Aug 3, 2012 01:59
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Vienna works amazingly for a saison (and pretty much any othe belgian beer). Also I've had some homebrews with hardcore DMS so saying it doesn't exist in homebrew is just plain wrong.
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Aug 3, 2012 02:22
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Jacobey000 posted:Yeah, but that much isn't just going to be out of style its going to be pretty dang sweet because of the unfermentable sugars. Dry kilned base malts don't do much to fermentability as near as I've been a let to tell. The loss of diastatic power further indicates to me the color from munich etc. is on the proteiny side of things. Never mind saison can be a pretty broad style with a decent amount of brown to dark examples if you look. Munich or Vienna as the base malt wouldn't be anywhere out of the norm.
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Aug 3, 2012 02:28
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CalvinDooglas posted:oh well, I'm not too worried about it being within the style strictly. I'm going for a strong hop profile and around 8% abv, so maybe a darker malt will complement that. No biggy, as long as your temps are good it will be a good beer. they are basically saying it isn't going to taste like a typical 8% saison. In the future, you shouldn't have 20% of your grain bill there for "color." 1 oz of roasted barley or carafa would do the same without altering the flavor profile so much.
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Aug 3, 2012 05:06
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I guess this is going to turn out as more of a Belgian IPA, which is actually fine by me, since I love IPAs and Saison yeast is apparently about all I can use without temperature control. The original recipe I was working from had a huge amount of wheat, and it was coming up very short on "color" in by BeerSmith's calculations. I took that to mean a weak body, so I shifted more of the grain to Pilsner and went with a darker malt to give it a tad more heft. It appears I underestimated the darkening power of even mildly roasted malt. If it comes out sub par I guess I know what to fix next time. And because I'm only doing a ~2.5 gal batch, I already have hops for the next brew! Doing the small batch, I also found an unexpected obstacle: low volume of fluids makes it hard to use the hydrometer. Without a "Thief" type product, less than 3.5 gallons is apparently too shallow for my hydrometer in the fermenting bucket. edit: yes, this is going to be a strong, hoppy Saison. The mash was less efficient that I hoped for, so I let it boil down a bit and ended up with about 1.8 gal instead of 2.5, around 1.06 OG. Pitched a whole vial of yeast, so hopefully I can get some experience culturing my own from the surplus (assuming any survives). CalvinDooglas fucked around with this message at 08:19 on Aug 3, 2012 |
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Aug 3, 2012 06:03
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Tasted one of my beers tonight. It fermented for two weeks, and bottled for 4 days (short, but I wanted to test it). It's a kit based IPA. It's... off. Not foul tasting like my last batch, but it certainly tastes a touch like the malt extract itself. Not a lot of anything that screams IPA, but it isn't bad. It's just kinda bland. Maybe it'll mature after a few weeks, but this is pretty disheartening. This is my 4th batch. The first one was the ONLY drinkable one. The two following that ranged from "eh, not really drinkable" to "obviously contaminated". If this batch doesn't pan out, I don't know what I'll do. No idea what I'm doing wrong, but I was careful as hell this time with sanitization.
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Aug 3, 2012 06:37
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Argh. How long is too long to keep dry hops in a beer to start seeing negative effects (if any)?
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Aug 3, 2012 14:23
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All carboys are 25% OFF from 7/25/12 – 8/31/12 at Northern Brewer. Coupon code: CARBOYSALE. Cannot be combined with other offers and does not include Beer or Wine Starter Kits. Good at all locations.
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Aug 3, 2012 15:17
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Kaiho posted:Argh. I (and a lot of other people) just throw hops into a keg and leave it there for the lifetime of the beer with no bad side effects. However, I don't know if being stored cold that entire time is what prevents it from having problems.
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Aug 3, 2012 15:18
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Cointelprofessional posted:All carboys are 25% OFF from 7/25/12 – 8/31/12 at Northern Brewer. Coupon code: CARBOYSALE. Cannot be combined with other offers and does not include Beer or Wine Starter Kits. Good at all locations. In case it wasn't clear, this includes Better Bottles.
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Aug 3, 2012 15:23
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crazyfish posted:In case it wasn't clear, this includes Better Bottles. Oh snap. Thanks for the clarification!
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Aug 3, 2012 15:29
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Mortanis posted:Tasted one of my beers tonight. It fermented for two weeks, and bottled for 4 days (short, but I wanted to test it). It's a kit based IPA. It's... off. Not foul tasting like my last batch, but it certainly tastes a touch like the malt extract itself. Not a lot of anything that screams IPA, but it isn't bad. It's just kinda bland. Maybe it'll mature after a few weeks, but this is pretty disheartening. Here are a few shot-in-the-dark troubleshooting suggestions: 1) Are you using straight tap water? If so, for a lark try buying bottled "spring" water - municipal water is usually treated with chloramine which doesn't boil off like chlorine does. Chloramine does not interact well with hops. 2) Where are you getting your extract? Liquid extract loses quality over time, shopping at a place that moves a lot of volume is best if getting liquid extract. 3) Have you tried dry extract? Dry extract keeps better meaning you'll have a lower chance of ending up with "extract twang" 4) Are you doing a partial boil? If so try to maximize how much you are boiling (i.e. if you are boiling 2 gallons, see if you can push that up to 2.5 or even 3). This will help extract more bitterness/flavor/aroma from your hops, and will also keep the color under control. 5) Know anyone who brews? Try to find someone who's been brewing for some time and see if you can't entice them to sit in on a brew with you - there might just be a step you've taken for granted that you need to reconsider 6) What are you doing (if anything) for temperature control? Try the keg bucket with cold water if you aren't doing anything - this is probably the single biggest step you can take to making better beer.
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Aug 3, 2012 16:44
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Super Rad posted:1) Are you using straight tap water? If so, for a lark try buying bottled "spring" water - municipal water is usually treated with chloramine which doesn't boil off like chlorine does. Chloramine does not interact well with hops. Hey, thanks for this explanation. I'd wondered why our chlorine doesn't impact my brews, sounds like it's because it's actual chlorine added to a home well-filtration setup as opposed to chloramine.
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Aug 3, 2012 17:07
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I use bottled spring water for all my brews, and yet they have all come out tasting a bit chemically. I just realized that I've been diluting my priming solution with plain tap water. Usually about 2 pints or so for 5oz of corn sugar. Our water is certainly treated with chloramines. Would that be enough for me to notice this weird flavor? I bottled a pumpkin spiced ale about a week ago, which I was sure would be the best I have made since I used temp control for it. It still has this off flavor though. The sample tasted good before bottling, so I'm guessing the small amount of tap water at bottling time is doing something. This trial and error process is driving me nuts. I'm wasting tons of money on ingredients and I have 15 gallons of beer that tastes like rear end.
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Aug 3, 2012 17:30
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U.S. Barryl posted:I use bottled spring water for all my brews, and yet they have all come out tasting a bit chemically. I just realized that I've been diluting my priming solution with plain tap water. Usually about 2 pints or so for 5oz of corn sugar. Our water is certainly treated with chloramines. Would that be enough for me to notice this weird flavor? I bottled a pumpkin spiced ale about a week ago, which I was sure would be the best I have made since I used temp control for it. It still has this off flavor though. The sample tasted good before bottling, so I'm guessing the small amount of tap water at bottling time is doing something. This trial and error process is driving me nuts. I'm wasting tons of money on ingredients and I have 15 gallons of beer that tastes like rear end. Sounds like you need more friends who don't know the difference between good beer and swill.
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Aug 3, 2012 17:39
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Paladine_PSoT posted:Sounds like you need more friends who don't know the difference between good beer and swill. Unfortunately, I do not associate myself with those people.
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Aug 3, 2012 17:47
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