Brewed a Dry Dock apricot ale clone couple days ago. Five hours after pitching WLP007 at 65 degrees, wicked storm came through and knocked out power for 24 hours. Fermenter free climbed to 80 degrees before power came back on. I adjusted temp down to 68 over several hours and it’s still plugging away. The recipe is a winner but I’m not willing to sacrifice my rather hard to find and expensive can of puree given the higher fermentation temperature. I’ll hold onto the puree and brew recipe again when I can control the temps. I’m going to audible the current batch and see how it comes out.
Recipe was very simple with 2-row, little english medium crystal and 1 ounce cascade at 60 minutes with no aroma or flavor hops added. If it does happen to turn out I’m thinking the beer may be a little bland, maybe not, but do you think I would benefit by adding a dry hop charge? I have cascade (lupomax), galena, azacca, tettnang, mittelfruh and fuggles in freezer that also got a little warm. Thinking all cascade, but wanted to ask those with more experience what would you do? I could just let it go and see how it turns out too. Thank you in advance.
In the interest of not throwing good money after bad, I’d wait to dry hop till after I tried the beer. If you keg it, that’s an option. If you bottle, then I’d probably add the dry hops beforehand. You can always taste it now and see if you think it needs dry hops. But at least for me, often I think a beer still in the fermenter is hopped plenty, but after it finishes it’s not. So that’s a tough call to make.
80F is definitely too high for me to put the puree in. I had a similar event last year but even a little higher temp. That batch went down the drain.
It’s incredible how much it will heat up if you don’t keep the fridge running.
Thank you for your reply. I will pull a sample here in the next day or two and see how it taste. I plan on kegging this batch. If it stinks on the taste test, I will cut my losses and move on.
If it’s getting kegged, I’d definitely keg it unless the taste test turns up terrible. Then if you decide it needs dry hops to be better, dry hop while it’s cold and in the keg. I’ve even had kegs I decided a month later that yea, it really need some dry hops, and throw it in. But, use a pretty good bag for that. Don’t use those crappy muslin bags that everything passes through.
I am curious about the recipe. I have been wanting to do an apricot wheat or something similar. Would you be able to post the recipe or point me in the direction of a kit is available.
Sure, years ago Northern Brewer had a pro series kit for several Dry Dock Brewing beers, one of which was the apricot blonde. They no longer sell it but you can find references to it online. There is also a short video on YouTube with the brewer… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I8JRO9jqfRI
With that said, here’s what I do… BIAB…5.5 gallons into fermenter…
96.7% 2-Row
3.3% English Medium Crystal
1 ounce Cascade at 60 minutes
1 - 3.1 pound can of Oregon apricot puree
1 - Apricot Extract (I use Silver Cloud)
WLP-007 yeast
Mash at 152 for one hour, pitch yeast at 65 and let it go 66, 67 until done. Add puree to fermenter on day 2-3 (high krausen). I use a tilt and when the gravity gets down around 1.025 I add the puree. Add extract at bottling/keg to taste. It doesn’t take much of the flavoring extract, this last time I used 38 mL.
For water profile, I use RO water and formulate a balanced profile with chlorides around 70 and SO 55. I shoot for a pH around 5.35 to 5.40.
It’s a really easy recipe to make and probably my most requested beer from family. Pretty expensive to make though by the time you buy the puree and extract. Hope that helps! Cheers.
UPDATE: After it reached final gravity and tasting fine I decided " what the heck" and added the can of puree. Added extract at kegging and just tried a sample here this evening 8/26. Taste just fine. We sampled this beer against the previous apricot blonde I have on tap and couldn’t tell the difference. What do ya know! Thanks again to all those that commented.
I think you made the right call here. It’s easier to conceal a potentially aggressive fermentation profile with fruit than dry hopping, but I bet the beer is not all that far off from what you expected.
