I am in the process of building a fermentation chamber out of an old deep freeze I haven’t got the temp controls wired in yet but decided to use the chamber anyway, I had been warming it with a heat lamp and was working great for the first two days and on day three I left the heat lamp on and the temps got to about 150 degrees in the chamber. Question is has anyone ever saved a beer from such a horrible fate or am I screwed like I think I am?
The ambient temp (150) doesn’t matter (other than how it impacts wort temp), wort temp does. Any idea?
Yeah, it’s gonna take a really long time for a heat lamp to raise all the thermal mass of a fermentor of wort to 150F. Like Fred said, the important question is what temp did the wort itself get up to. In just one day of heat lamp time, it probably didn’t warm up that much.
Do you still have fermentation going?
First two days set the beer profile and now you are just working on alcohol creation and sugar reduction.
If you kill your yeast.
Measure your gravity.
If you still have plenty of sugars left over, make and active starter and pitch it.
If you still have fermentation then relax and let it finish the fermentation.
Oh yeah. I forgot.
Brew another beer.
I agree it will take a while to get up to 150F, but even if it hit 110F it likely killed or messed up most if not all of the yeast.
Get the temp down, check the gravity, maybe pitch more yeast, but definitely taste it. If it tasted really fusely or off to me I would probably just toss it, no point in throwing good money after bad.
Yeah a fusel bomb is a recipe for a headache for sure. Even a small one… 
Hey thanks guys for all the advice, in a bit more detail the WORT got to 150 degrees, the ambient temp got to 195 degrees, I figure I did ruin this one BUT am going to try some more yeast and see what I can save, if I can save anything, but am definietly going to get another brew started ASAP.
If your wort was 150, I’d say the yeast is probably no good. Taste it and see. Is there any activity? or did it all stop? What is your current gravity at?
You might just be able to repitch when it’s cooled down enough.
I am wondering if the wort has been fermented or if it got hot so suddenly that the yeast was killed first. Have you taken a gravity reading? If it is low (finished) then more yeast will not help.
Does it taste hot? Fusel alcohols burn.
I would be amazed if this beer tastes good. Summer ambient temperatures of 80+ can make a beer taste terrible, let along 150 degrees. 5 gallons of beer takes longer to warm up than air, but even 10 degrees could make the yeast go crazy. Hopefully you were making a Saison. Or have a terrible palate.
150F? The yeast are dead, as is everything else in there. 30 minutes at 145F = pasteurization.
Just an Update guys, Ya, the yeast is dead for sure, The beer tasted really skunky at first now it does taste off, but I cooled it downa nd re-pitched some yeast and nothing happend, I started at about 15.5 Brix and got down to about 9 brix before I ruined it, I’m gonna play around with it a bit and maybe just give it to my friends that are sick and sniffily and can’t taste so good :D. Well lesson learned, thanks for all the great input
With partially fermented wort, it is best to pitch actively fermenting yeast to get it going. You can give it time, try repitching, or just dump it. I wouldn’t serve anyone a beer that started at 15.5 and finished at 9 unless that was the way I intended it.
If those are refractometer readings it could just be finished. FG ~1.018: Refractometer Calculator « SeanTerrill.com
Good point. Really good point. Are you using a refractometer or a hydrometer? Some hydrometers have a brix scale.
I just bookmarked that page. Exactly what was needed. Thanks Sean!