a bad batch. Last night I bottled my Falconer’s Flight IPA and upon racking into the bottling bucket I was getting a alcohol aroma. Taste was alcohol up front and bitter at the back.
I think I know my culprit. High fermentation temps. I worked like crazy to keep them both consistent and below 70 but a couple of times it hit 70-71. Not a huge major issue but I know the beer could have been warmer in the carboy so who knows what the actual temp was.
Oh well. More reason to make a fermentation chamber. I was excited about this batch but my excitement quickly turned to disappointment.
I will see how it turns out after a couple weeks in the bottle. Fingers crossed.
Sometimes a heavily-hopped IPA will be kind of harsh at first. I wouldn’t give up on it. If you got into the mid-70’s with US05 it might throw some fusels though.
it’s only bad when you can’t drink it. otherwise, it’s just “different”. i’ve made a lot of “different” beers. part of the leaning (freudian slip…that s/b learning) process.
Using nothing currently. Didn’t expect such a huge increase in temperatures (really just a few days were really warm).
Now I am debating on a swamp cooler utilization a Igloo Ice Cube cooler with some modifications or the Cool Brew bag…which is essentially a bag swamp cooler that totally incloses the carboy.
I just use a big plastic tub, not insulated. I’ll throw in some 1L ice bottles morning and switch them out in the evening. Between the extra thermal mass of the 3-4gal of water, and the cooling of the ice, the temp of the brew doesn’t ramp up nearly as much. Its really important for those bigger beers because the high sugar gets the yeast cranking, and the temp can run away.
Oh and by the way, if a beer isn’t right I dump rather than suffer through it.
70s toward the end of fermentation is also not necessarily a bad thing as the higher temps can help the yeast to finish. But in the first couple days it should be avoided. However, it’s not necessarily doom as I have had beers that spiked up and they were no worse for the wear.
Give it some time, but if it turns out not to be improving you might just need to cut your losses and dump it. I’ve got a keg or two that just need to go, but I have enough kegs to let them age. Hope is eternal.
i tried to brew a double strenght cap, kind of beer. double the hops. i let my mash temperature get too high and i had a very low in stead of very high og. of course the thing still had original hops as planned and it is like drinking saturated hop water. i was going to toss it all away, but i spared a few bottles just to see what grossly mis matched hops to malt is like for people
Since you are in CO, this may not apply to you…here in Florida (temps inside the house hover around 77 in the summer) I thought about every angle to keep my beer cool. I settled on this Igloo MaxCold Ice Cube 70 Roller - Thermo box - 17.4 gal - ice blue, carbon - Walmart.com
and couldn’t be happier! I also tried frozen ice bottles, frozen, packs, etc. but the best way (for me) was to fill it up with water to match the beer line in the carboy and add a small amount of ice 2x day. This keeps it right at 65 for me. It fits my 6.5 gallon carboy but the lid has to stay off. Any information you may want about it please let me know as I scoured the web for solutions.