I just brewed a 5 gallon batch of Caribou Slobber. The brewing went very smooth the OG was normal for the slob. Within 12 hours the primary was going crazy, lots of bubbles, a nice foam head, but after day 2 the bubbles slowed down dramatically and the foam sank back into the beer so there is no foam anymore. Im keeping the beer in a 70 degrees temp but when the fermentation was going on the primary went to about 78 degrees. could that have been the result of a fast fermentation? and also, is it okay if I move the caribou slob into the secondary in only 1 week or should I wait 2?
Its likely at that temp its mostly done. Thats really warm for an ale. Ales should be kept around 68.
Do you think the beer is gonna be too skunky to drink then???
[quote=“RottenPhish”]Do you think the beer is gonna be too skunky to drink then???[/quote]Not necessarily - it might be a little “hot” on the alcohol and have some off-flavors, but maybe not. I would leave it on the yeast cake at least another week, maybe two, and let the yeast do as much clean-up as possible. At that point, you could go ahead and bottle or transfer to a secondary if you want to.
What yeast did you use? Some are more forgiving of higher temperatures.
I used the Danstar Windsor Ale Yeast. Hope it is forgiving and gives me a nice batch.
Like shadetree said, itll probably be hot. It could still taste good though. Might just have a liquor like feeling to it.
Not to hijack this thread, but…
The same thing just happened to a batch of midnight beatdown wheaten porter with me. Brewed on Sunday and pitched right on top of a cake of wyeast 1450. Fermenting temp was a little high, low 70’s. I checked it this a.m. And the krausen had settled into the beer and airlock/blowoff tube activity was nil. I was hoping to get this beer down to a real low FG hence the whole cake pitch job and higher temp. I checked gravity today and it was 1.020. This is not where I want it to stall out and have swirled the carboy to hopefully promote some more fermentation activity and have lowered the ambient temp of the room where it sits. It is now sitting in 58-62 degree ambient temp.
I will say that I tasted the sample and fearing the worst, it’s still quite good given its VERY young age (3 days) and less than ideal fermentation conditions.
I’m hoping it will drop some more gravity points with some lingering fermentation and mellow a touch, but it could’ve been a lot worse.
Hope things work out for your beer as well. Cheers,eh.
[quote=“discowheelie”] It is now sitting in 58-62 degree ambient temp.[/quote]If you’re trying to promote more yeast activity, lowering the ambient temp by 10F is the wrong thing to do (and if it was fermenting vigorously in low-70s ambient, you’re looking at ~20F difference). Keep it in the upper 60s and rouse the yeast once per day.
in my experiences i have found that the higher the temp the worse the initial flavor but it will clean up with age. if you are brewing a hoppy beer you want to drink fresh this is most likely a problem, i have learned to ferment at 62-64 ambient so that it doesnt get above 70 during the climax of fermentation. cheers!
I havent had the experience that drawdy10 has had. IME once fusel alcohols have been formed they always taste hot. That being said, I was able to drink the beers this happened to me on, and they were drinkable. Just not the best Ive made.
I just posted about this in related thread on the General, but wanted to chime in here and say that I had the same experience. During the peak, the temp got up to around 72, but bubbles were coming pretty quickly, and a fairly tall krausen developed. It was still rocking when I left for work on day 2 but by the time I got home the krausen had mostly fallen, activity had almost completely stopped, and temp was down to around 62. As with the OP, I used Danstar Windsor ale yeast. My OG was 1.052, and FG is 1.022, which sounds like it’s common for CS, but maybe not ideal (it’s my first time brewing, so I’m just going on what I’ve read around the Web).
