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?
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
