Homebrewers - Whats Fermenting?

[twenty5]

I cracked open a Pumpkin beer the other night because I couldnt waitr any longer. It hasnt carbed up yet and the taste was rather dissappointing.. I fermented at 65 and this is the first beer that has a banana like taste that I made. I figured at 65 or less it would never get that banana funk to it. Anyone know what could have went wrong?

1.106 OG
1.013 FG
I think the recipe was like:
18lbs - 2row
2lb 1oz - 20L Crystal
1oz - Sterling
1oz - Magnum
WLP1028 w/ 2L Starter on stirplate
Also, I BIAB but doubt that would do anything besides decrease efficiency, hence the hefty grain bill.
I used 2lbs of pumpkin pie filling, fermented at 65 or less. It was bubbling pretty good for about 2 weeks. It did take longer than normal to start up, usually I get blow off in a day or less, this started pushing yeast through the tube after about 3 or 4 days.

 

[mthhurley]

A couple questions:

How did you oxygenate? High gravity beers require a lot of o2. Preferably pure o2. Lack of o2 can throw off esters by stressing the yeast.
Did you raise the temp of the beer at the end? This can help clean up those esters by rousing the yeast when it's warmed.

 

[smokinghole]

Not enough oxygen and a slightly undersized pitch will cause increased ester production. Also was the room at 65 or was it in some sort of fridge or something that will take heat away from the fermentor?

 

[jimmypa]

My farmhouse saison has still not carbed... All it has is a very faint tingle to it, cant figure out what happened. It has been at least 6 weeks now since I have bottled. Tried arousing each bottle, bringing temp up to around 75 deg, checked the caps- all tight, pretty much tried everything besides opening them all up. Considering opening them up and adding a tiny bit of yeast to each as I believe there wasn't enough to carb them enough.

When fermenting I left it in the secondary for about a month after the primary. I am thinking most of the yeast settled to the bottom. when I siphoned into the bottling bucket I actually tried to not suck up anything from the bottom and think I did a pretty good job (although this may have created my problem).

Has anyone else dealt with this problem before or have any suggestions for me? Thanks!

 

[smokinghole]

Was the beer very clear when bottling? Typically a month even three months won't get enough yeast to settle out even when cold conditioning belgian ales. I don't mean to second guess you but typically the issue is cap tightness, or improper amount of priming sugar, or accidentally using something like malto dextrine instead of dextrose. I don't know with out having been there. If there was sugar I'm very sure there was enough yeast to make bubbles.

 

[jimmypa]

The beer was very clear when bottling. Still new at this so appreciate the input, no worries about second guessing me as I could be wrong. The only thing is I've bottled before and after this batch with the same caps and capper and have had consistently great results besides this batch. I also tried twisting the caps by hand and they didn't move (guessing this isn't a fail safe test though). Bottles are of various types but most have been used before without problem. This was a recipe kit so I added the 5 oz of priming sugar to the bottling bucket. Everything was sanitized in the same fashion as previous and latter batches. I'm really stumped on this one!

Should I wait longer before opening them all up and doing something that way or if it's been six weeks it's time for action?

 

[smokinghole]

Well as long as the sugar was added and there's a small amount of carbonation it might still build up. I've had beers never carb up but they're not a loss. I will save the remainder of the batch and blend it into the next similar batch I brew during fermentation (if it's not a good when fresh beer). My biggest issue tends to be high abv beers that have aged for 6 months or more. I have to calculate the carbonation manually because the programs all assume carbonation levels that are too high for long term aged beer. Then I also tend to add champagne yeast unless there is brettanomyces in the beer. Typically six weeks should be well more than enough time, but if some how you ended up with a super high flocculant yeast that all fell out of suspension you might need more yeast. I've never ever ever had an issue with a saison carbing up for me, even after 4+ months.

 

[twenty5]

I used pure O2 for 60-90 seconds and it was in a keg bucket filled with water for fermentation, the room was 65 and the bucket was kept below that with ice bottles being changed out every 12-24 hrs.. Everytime it would approach 65 I would switch them out.

 

[twenty5]

Also Adam, I am getting ready to bottle my Westy clone. It is cold crashing now. I saved yeast from my starter to add during bottling. Do you make a small starter or just add the yeast to the priming sugar?

 

[smokinghole]

Make a small starter, that'd be best.

Well with the temp and everything under control the other thing that causes yeast to throw esters is just a high gravity wort. Also did you use WY 1028 or WL028? If the WY the esters profile is very likely from the yeast strain itself coupled with the high gravity.

 

[twenty5]

Make a small starter, that'd be best.

Well with the temp and everything under control the other thing that causes yeast to throw esters is just a high gravity wort. Also did you use WY 1028 or WL028? If the WY the esters profile is very likely from the yeast strain itself coupled with the high gravity.

I used WY1028, I guess that must be the culprit... What strain would you recommend for a high gravity Pumpkin for next year?

Thanks for the help.

 

[smokinghole]

I'd use WLP028. It's like an English version of WLP001. I don't know what the WY is, I think 1728 for roughly the same yeast..

 

[twenty5]

WY1028 is London Ale yeast. I guess its equal to WLP013. I guess I took for granted the 028 being the same as 1028.... I found this conversion chart for the future though:

http://www.mrmalty.com/yeast.htm#Wyeast_vs_WLP

Was that the problem then?

 

[smokinghole]

Some english yeasts will make a high amount of esters compared to others. That is the case for standard gravity worts of 1.040-1.060 for English beers. When you start getting over 1.080 the ester profile gets big just like the beer. The higher gravity stresses the yeast out a bit and they throw out a lot of flavor due to the amount of replication necessary to completely ferment that high gravity wort. Temperature and pressure also has a role in ester profile. Lower temp and higher pressure (like a sealed keg fermentor with an adjustable blow off valve) would suppress the ester profile making higher gravity beers easier to produce and keep the ester profile down.

The other way is to use brettanomyces since it consumes some of the esters made by normal yeast for their metabolism and flavor compounds. However that's not necessarily something you'd really want in a pumpkin ale.

 

[smokinghole]

Speaking of big beers. My annual imperial stout brewday is today. I'm going balls out today and brewing up 16 gallons between two batches. I should have a gravity of around 1.117 and 100IBUs. It's then going to ferment for 4 or so months in one of my big 15.9 gal speidel fermentors. From there it will spend the rest of it's time in my 15 gal oak barrel. I will check it periodically for flavor and stuff. If the oak begins to take over then I will rack it back into a regular fermentor because it needs to finish up with the brett. I have rinsed with hot water twice to decrease the oak and I have rum sitting in it right now (not 15 gal worth though). I will give it one more quick rinse for flavor control and a little parafin wax to reduce oxygen transfer through the wood.

This is a 34lb grist in my 13 gal cooler, the max I can handle really. It's filled to the brim and it's a thick mash at 1qt/lb. Sparge will be dependent on gravity because if I still have good sugar coming out I will continue sparging to get all the gravity I can. If I need to I will adjust the hopping to account for higher than expected gravity.

 

[smokinghole]

So I bottled a dubbel about two weeks ago. I made a dubbel in the spring and it ended up getting contaminated by me I think. It got viscous and ropy. Then in August I remade the same recipe and used the same yeast just a fresh culture from East Coast Yeast. Well at bottling I could taste some acidity and attributed that to the 1lb of acidulated malt I added to the beer. However that malt addition would not have caused the level of acidity I'm experiencing in this beer. So I think the culture came with a lactobacillus contamination in the bottle. The cool thing is the beer is goddamn delicious. I'd still like to remake the recipe with out a sour aspect for a Trappist style party at my house. I keep getting delayed with sour stuff.

The imperial stout krausened out of my 16 gal fermentor just 18 hours after adding yeast to half the batch. I held off adding the other half of the batch to the fermentor due the activity in the fermentor. It appears to have calmed down today and I may push my second 8 gal half into the 16 gal fermentor. The issue is that it will go absolutely nuts again.

 

[hossdawg]

Tasted my Lagunitas IPA yesterday and turned out nice, a little hazy compared to the original but the flavors are pretty spot on. Bottled the Vanilla Porter and had some racking problems as the new tubing I bought was a bit to big and couldn't get a good flow without any air bubbles flowing into the bottling bucket. With a little emergency work, fixed the problem and hopefully saved it without to much oxygen getting in there.. Brewed a 10 gallon Janet's Brown yesterday and now have a bone-head story I can tell. After mash and filling my boil kettle with 14 gallons of tasty wort at about 190 degrees I go to take off my tubing from the mash tun and drop a screwdriver right in the boil kettle. After adding another 45 minutes to my brew-day because of this, the new name for the beer is the Screw U.

 

[smokinghole]

I use electrical tape wrapped tight on my hoses to ensure a nice tight fit. Even though I have 1/2" ID tubing it doesn't fit my autosiphon that's 1/2" OD (i think at least). So I use electrical tape and it works perfect.

So I threw the last 4 gallons of stout into the fermentor tonight. It went wild again and since it's so close to the top it is krausening out of the fermentor again. I hope I don't lose too much beer. Thank god I have a top up option of an old imperial stout that never carbed up.

 

[hossdawg]

That was the exact problem I had regarding the auto-siphon and tape was also my quick fix. Thanks.

 

[smokinghole]

Well I did a last minute unplanned fruit addition to my 100% brettanomyces saison. I have three gallons that will be plain and dry hopped. The fruit is three gallons and has 4 peeled prickly pears. The color it took on from the fruit is amazingly intense magenta. Sort of looks like a real froo froo drink I'd have to keep my pinky up to drink.