I decided to ferment my new ale at 65 because I wanted more raisins and dates than bananas. I’m using Abbaye at 63 degrees. I set the Inkbird for 65, but it seems to be running a little low.
As of today, the fermenting fridge has developed an aroma, but it’s mostly banana. Has anyone else had this result at low temperatures? The yeast is rated for 63-77.
First, yeast temp ratings don’t really mean much. Second, how long has it been?
Pitched night before last.
Yes, this yeast strain is known for producing a good bit of banana. The yeast might be less impacted by temperature changes than you think. Belgian strains are a bit unpredictable in this regard. If you don’t want a lot of banana, it should mellow and age out after a few weeks or months. What was your pitch rate, how many packs in how many gallons or liters? I’m wondering if maybe you overpitched or underpitched.
I decided to try hydrating instead of a starter, having read the instructions on the label. There is a lot of wheat in this beer, so I did not think it would need a lot of encouragement.
Here is exactly what I saw in a Lallemand PDF:
[quote]When fermented at higher
temperatures, typical flavors and aromas include tropical, spicy and banana. At lower
temperatures, LalBrew Abbaye™ produces darker fruit aromas and flavors of raisin, date
and fig.
[/quote]
Maybe I put too much faith in that.
I have used this yeast with a starter in a lighter beer fermented at 75 degrees, and it produced tons of banana aroma, which I wanted. This time I read that stuff about raisins and so on, and it sounded good to me.
This beer has an OG of 1.084, but I missed at 1.073 and ended up adding DME.
I’m not convinced that raisin/date/fig flavors are produced in significant quantities by any yeast. Has anyone had a tripel or Belgian golden with fig flavors? I never have. Those flavors come from dark Candi Syrups (D-90 and darker) and dark crystal/Cara malt (Special B/Simpsons DRC, and crystal malt at about 120L or darker). At best, a yeast may produce less esters at a certain temp to get out of the way of these flavors, but I don’t think you’re going to get these flavors from the yeast itself.
I don’t even like figs, but the raisins and dates sounded good. Made me think of St. Bernardus Christmas Ale.
really true and ive wanted to test out basically a dubbel recipe using an english or other yeast for a while now.
i think some esters can add shape and imagined form to what essentially comes from the malts and candi sugar etc.
Agreed
The beer probably won’t taste like the smell in the fermentation chamber. I think this is a time for RDWHAHB.
If you want raisin flavor, use special B. that malt tastes exactly like raisins to me.
Tommymorris called it. No banana smell now.
The beer apparently went off like like an ammunition dump in a bombing raid, because it doesn’t seem to have done anything in two days, and I brewed it 4 days ago. I did a sloppy SG check today, and I got 1.018, 2 points below the target. I am not extremely confident about the OG because I have had some refractometer issues. I had to measure at 93 with a hydrometer.
In any case, it appears to be ready to keg. It’s not making pressure, so I don’t think it’s fermenting to any great degree.
How long should I expect this beer to take to be drinkable? I haven’t made a heavy beer since 2004, so I don’t remember what happened with the last one. I recall that it never cleared up, and it kept improving for a very long time. Maybe over a year.
I don’t brew a lot of big beers but a strategy could be to try it now and take notes. Try it again in 3-ish months take notes, repeat, repeat, repeat, as necessary.
I kegged under pressure today, and I am now aging or whatever you would like to call it at 55.
I tried a sample. On the one hand, it’s much more like beer now. I guess a lot of yeast dropped out. On the other, I can smell the bananas again. Maybe something was masking it before.
It has a little burn to it. Overall, a little rough, but the basic flavor is fantastic, so I hope to start enjoying it soon.