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Alcohol Off Flavor

Northern Brewer General
#1

I recently brew a custom Irish Red recipe
http://brewtoad.com/recipes/fed-head-red
and am after 7 weeks of conditioning, I’m getting some pretty strong alcohol off flavors. I controlled my fermentation temps down to the lower end of the acceptable range for the yeast strain (64F) and I pulled it off the trub after about 3 weeks. So I’m not quite sure HOW I got these off flavors. But they’re there nonetheless.

Will this condition out in the keg over time?

Any other thoughts as to what may have caused these off flavors?

#2

Might be contamination. How long was the lag time after pitching? Did it start right up in about 24 hours, or did it take 3 or 4 days to get going? If it took a while, you might have some wild yeast in there. I haven’t used S-04 much but some people don’t like it for some reason or other. Might be a poor yeast health issue / contamination. Maybe. I’m not saying that it is for sure, I’m just saying that it’s possible.

Otherwise I honestly have no idea why you’d be getting a lot of fusels. Your fermentation temperature and time seem appropriate. Your recipe looks alright. Dry yeast is typically very reliable, except as mentioned above. So I really can’t say for sure what else might be going on.

#3

Started within 3 hours.

#4

Have you used S-04 much before? I ask because I find it to have a weird tangy flavor that works in malted up British bitters, milds, and some porters, but not in other beers. We used it in a brown porter recipe that won NHC 2 years ago (which I thought had enough malt for it to work), but the tang is noticeable.

I guess I ask just to make sure its fusel alcohol/heat and not this tangy phenolic. You may try getting it down to 30* or so, then hitting it with some gelatin to drop out any excess yeast, but if it is indeed a fusel, its here to stay I’m afraid.

#5

Strange. It might be contamination anyway, maybe. Do you ferment in plastic or glass? Personally I switched to glass a couple years ago and I’ll never look back again, after a dozen or so contaminated batches fermented in plastic. Might be time to replace all your plastics and hoses. Maybe.

#6

I do occasionally ferment in buckets and have been using them and the same siphon and tubing for about a year. Probably time to replace. Thanks for the suggestion

#7

Maybe a stupid question, but I took a brief look at your recipe.
It’s 7.5% ABV. I wonder if you’re just tasting the higher alcohol bite. If so, in my experience(granted only a couple high ABVs) it takes a couple months for the alcohol bite to smooth out.

#8

How do you control fermentation temperature?

#9

+1. Is 64 your room temp or the temp of the beer?

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