I brewed the hosts’ Brickwarmer Holiday Red extract kit late Saturday evening and all went well…until I checked the fermenter Monday morning.
First - When transferring from kettle to fermenter, I noticed very little trub left in kettle. I do use a double mesh strainer but even that had minimal trub.
Second - Fermentation began within 12 hours and seemed to be very active right away. (used us-04 dry yeast)
Third - Checked on the progress Monday morning and found the lid and airlock to be filled with beer. (sanitized a second airlock and replaced the dirty one) I removed the lid to see what was happening inside and noticed the krausen was now plastered to the sides of the bucket (i use 6.5 gal buckets). I replaced the lid and tried giving it a good shake but I don’t think that did any good.
Four - Not sure if this is bad or not but there is a heavy aroma of banana coming from the fermenter.
I just purchased my corny keg setup and was hoping to keg this batch in time for turkey day. Please tell me that my beer is fine and that my family and other guests will be tapping a decent brew come turkey day!
I keep all of my fermenters in a closet in my basement that sits right around 68 degrees. I’ve done 10 batches so far and this was the first “problem” with fermentation.
If your closet is 68 degrees your beer is in the mid seventies. Which Is much higher than most would recommend. Low sixties fermentation temps will tend to give you much better beer.
And mid seveties can easily bring some banana to the party. Look up a swamp cooler on this forum. If your closet is around 68 consistently then a swamp cooler in there would be able to hold a colder temp pretty easily.
It’ll probably be drinkable. The yeast you used is also sort of a beast and does fast ferments. Taste it when you get a chance and see where your gravity is. If it tastes goo enough then itll be good in a bottle. I had a batch ferement real high once in the 76 range and it was alright.
My first-ever beer had absolutely no temperature control, and I made it in the summertime when my basement regularly gets above 70F. It had noticeable alcohol notes, but we drank every bottle.
the mid 70’s were full of banana parties. “come & knock on our door. we’ll be waiting for you…”
seriously though, you need to get your temps down. I’ll bet you’re making good beer, but temp control is a necessity for great to exceptional beer. :cheers:
I’m gonna work on temps for next batch…swamp cooler shouldn’t be too hard to work with. I live in PA and this batch was my first with the heat turned on in my house. It just pisses me off because I had big plans for this brew! Ordering another kit next week so that I can give it another shot.
Any thoughts on breaking in my keg system with this “bad” batch or stick with bottling as it may not be good?
Thanks to all that left feedback…this forum has helped me learn a lot of things being new to the homebrew world. I do love this hobby!
I wouldn’t call it a “bad” batch. it’ll just be a beer that decided not to live up to its potential. I think anytime is a good time to keg. but it seem the kegs run out faster than the bottles for some reason.
It’ll be fine. Give it some time before you keg it and the yeast will clean up some of those byproducts. You were a smidge on the warm side but not enough to make it undrinkable.
I brewed this post labor day for the holidays. I brewed using Wyeast option and tried to limit the ambient temp. to well below the high side. I used a swamp cooler, froze a case of cheap water bottles and dropped 4 frozen bottles into the cooler twice a day for a week and that kept fermentation in the 64/60 degree ambient range for the first week.
When I tried the first sample, I was really disappointed with the lack of orange in flavor and aroma. I took a bottle to NB last night, and John at the Milwaukee shop advised to let it warm a bit. We let it get closer to 45 to 50 and the orange kind of appeared. It amazes me how temperature has such an affect on fermentation, storage, and consumption. It turned out to be a very nice ale.
I think anytime is a good time to keg. but it seem the kegs run out faster than the bottles for some reason.