Well, I just started brewing all grain, and its actually a lot of fun. I brewed a Hoe Gaarden clone and when I transferred to secondary I got to taste a sample and it was dead on.
I decided this past weekend to brew an all grain white house honey ale. It used the Danstar Windsor Ale yeast (dry) with this batch. Its temperature range is 64-70.
I usually keep the house kind of cold with the thermostat at 65 but that day it was very cold so I had it on 67 or 68 (cant remember) so I know it fermented above the high end. Now im curious is to how much I ruined the batch. Im guessing it probably got as high as 75 in the carboy, but I could be wrong. Maybe lower 70’s and active fermentation only took like 36 hours at most and was churning away. I brewed and added the yeast Saturday night around 8:30. It still had a thick krausen layer at 2a.m. last night but when I woke up this morning it had all settled to the bottom. I’ve had beers ferment that fast before, but maybe because its only my second all grain i’m a little worried about it. I just hope I don’t get too many off flavors or fusel alcohol. Do you all think I am over reacting? What are your thoughts on it?
Don’t worry about it until you’ve tasted it. You’ll probably have lots of esters in it from the high temp, but you’ll know right away if it has fusels from the taste. Might be ok?
Do you have the stick on thermometers on your caboys? If not you should. They’re cheap and they work.
Windsor is a pretty estery fruity english ale yeast. I’ve only used it once and fermented at 60-62 degrees, raised to 70 for a D rest.
At 75 I’m guessing it will have some character. Probably drinkable depending on how fruity you like your ales.
Did you pitch it at the lower temp? What type of heat do you have? Most houses have warm and cold spots, your thermostat may have read warmer than where you fermenter was especially if you put it in a closet. I bet it turns out fine.
I only had one stick on thermometer but I used it for the Hoe Gaarden and it started peeling off so I threw it away. I never set the thermostat in the house higher than 68, and I have a big kitchen with a big opening that leads to the living room, the carboy was on the kitchen side by the wall to the garage. It might have been a cooler spot. This morning it was warmer outside than it has been and I turned on a digital thermometer and placed it next to the carboy in the open air and it read 70. I’m almost positive it was between 66-68 in the house during the fermentation. The wort was just under 70 when I pitched the yeast.
I have a kegerator that I use as a fermentation chambe that currently has no beer in it. I should have set the controller to 64 and put it in there. My mistake. If it comes out bad i’ll brew the same batch but control the temp so I can see the difference. Who knows, maybe this batch will come out good and I worried for nothing. I don’t mind having some estery fruit flavors, as long as they arent too overpowering.
I just can’t deal with the fusels. I did read somewhere it had to break 80 degrees to really produce fusels though, but then again, it’s hard to know what the truth it when reading stuff on the internet.
There’s no magic number for fusels, it all depends on the specific yeast. Don’t worry about it at this point, it’s probably fine. But make sure you drink the hydro sample when you check gravity! Solvent flavors are no bueno, but otherwise it’s probably ok.
Yeah, test it, taste it. No problem, then when the readings are the same fer a couple of days, throw it in the kezzer and crash that sucker to 32*…. Keg, Gelitan, drink and enjoy…. too much worrying will give you ulcers. Sneezles61
