beer ASK WHEEBZ

safale US-05. The first day the ferment temperature got up pretty high to like 78, might even have hit 80. I didn't realize how warm our back room gets during the days. After that I moved it into the garage where it continued to ferment at 65.
It sat in the fermenter for 12 days and it had stopped bubbling completely at around day 8-9.

I took specific gravity on days 10, 11, and 12 all were 1.017 so I bottled it up.
 
yea you should have kept it at that 65-67 the entire time

the yeast had time to produce a boatload of diacetyl, which would have gone away had you kept it at that temperature, but then you would have produced many other off-flavors in the process ruining it as well

when the yeast react to that sort of temperature change that quickly, bad things happen, such as the lack of a reduction of the diacetyl in this case
 
Lesson learned.

Thanks for all the info. It definitely helps to know where I went wrong so I don't do it again.

Now to drink 23 more butterscotch IPA's. lol
 
I tried another couple bottles today and now I know what you were talking about with the buttery taste. They both tasted like I melted down a stick of butter and tried to drink it. Definitely not drinkable. I guess I'm dumping this batch and moving forward.

Bummer!!!
 
it can also be caused by Pediococcus bacteria, so you might want to make sure that you dont have some sort of infection in your beer either

clean clean clean that fermenter, sanitize the shit out of it, the racking arm, the lid, the stopper, everything

that could also be another problem with it
 
I hope that if it was an infection that it does not travel to the second batch of beer that I brewed. I washed everything with PBW and then sanitized with Five Star Star San. I sanitized everything that came in contact with the beer post boil.

Two batches going bad would probably be enough to discourage me from trying it again. I hope it was just the excessive heat and then moving it to the much cooler temps during fermentation, because I did everything the exact same with the second batch as far as sanitizing, so I would expect the same results.

Time will tell I suppose.
 
Hey Wheebz, I've got another question for you. I just bottled up the 5 gallon batch of hazelnut brown ale that I had you take a look at the recipe of. The beer tastes awesome. Well that was until I added the hazelnut extract. The recipe that I had called for 2 oz. of extract. I started by adding 1/2 ounce to the 5 gallon batch and sampled it and the hazelnut really overpowered all of the nice flavors that the beer had. My question is... Does the flavor from extracts being added mellow out while bottle conditioning takes place, or will the flavor that I tasted be what I should expect? Also, I tasted it with the extract and the corn sugar for bottling, so will that effect what I tasted since the corn sugar will all get used up?

This learning curve sucks. I want to be able to say "I brew the beer I drink" too.
 
Unforunately with flavorings and flavor extracts, once you add it, its pretty much there, which is why I dont use any in any of my beers

the corn sugar you added shouldnt be significant at all if you are just using it for carbonating, so you shouldnt even taste it at all
 
Damn!!! The beer was so good too! I guess I learned not to use extracts anymore. I'll just stick with learning the flavors of the different grains and yeasts. I cannot believe that someone liked their beer with 4 times what I added enough to post it as a recipe. It's not undrinkable, but it was awesome and now its gonna be a challenge to get through 26 22s.

I am going to give that same recipe a try minus the extract. It was pretty delicious.
 
Hey Wheebz! Sorry to have hijacked your thread lately, but I am only on my third batch now and it's nice to have professional advice.

So, to my question... I just brewed a batch of the hazelnut brown nectar I had you review before, but I substituted 9 lbs liquid malt for the 7 lbs DME. My final gravity turned out to be about 1.065-1.066. I was just wondering since this gravity is getting higher than my previous batches should I have made a yeast starter? I used White Labs WLP001. As of now I pitched one vial directly into a five gallon on the dot batch. Should I pitch more yeast tomorrow? Should I make a starter at this point and pitch that in two days, or should I relax, don't worry, have a home brew?

Again, sorry for hijacking your thread lately, but I really appreciate all the help.

P.S. No effin' extract this time. Hopefully just a nice beer.
 
There is no need for a starter for a beer that small, esp with the 001 yeast strain

other than WLP007, i have yet to find such a vigorous yeast strain

i wouldnt even consider a starter until you are past the .085 range
 
Hey man, I've got another recipe I am thinking about trying out. Let me know what you think. Will it work? Anything I should consider with this one?

Rye IIPA recipe

Grains

Rye Malt- 1.0lb $2.20
2-Row Malt- 0.5lb $0.65
Crystal 40- 0.5lb $0.85
Carapils- 1.0lb $1.95

Extract

9 lbs Light LME $23.40
2 lbs Light DME $7.50

Hops

Simcoe- 1oz. bittering hops @ 70 minutes $8.50
Magnum- 1oz bittering hops @ 60 minutes $3.25
Simcoe- 1 oz flavoring hops @ 30 minutes ---
Simcoe- 2 oz flavoring hops @ 20 minutes ---
Chinook- 2 oz aroma hops @ 5 mins $3.25
Cascade- 2 oz aroma hops @ flameout $2.50

Yeast

White Labs- WLP007 $5.75

Additions

Whirlfloc $2.50

Bottle priming

4 oz Cornsugar $0.95


Total $63.25
 
One thing I was considering was replacing some of the DME with corn sugar. Is this a good idea? I read that it could help reduce residual sweetness and make for a "dryer" beer. Any thoughts?
 
Hey buddy this is wheebz, im posting from FD's house right now

couple of things

in your specialy grains, there is absolutely no need for the 2 row, 2 row is a base malt that is only used for fermentable sugars, no need to use it for specialty grains, and jump up your rye malt to 2lbs if you want to really extract that rye flavor

the hops

no need to use that hop bill

throw in an ounce and a half of a 13-14 A.A. hop, Columbus, or even a high AA Simcoe, Nugget will also work as well

no need for the other hops until whirlpool

what you wanna do is before you cool down your beer, right when you flame out, toss in the ounce of cascade, simcoe, and chinook in and whirlpool the beer for like 3 minutes

let it rest for 10 minutes, then cool down your beer

once you ferment it out, transfer to a secondary, and add 2 more ounces of each of the hops that you used in the whirlpool, and you will be golden

I literally do 3 hop additions to my IPA, bittering, whirlpool, and dry hop, and thats all that we did at Southern Tier as well, and we made some crazy hoppy beers

and no, do NOT replace the DME with corn sugar

it will produce a shitload of bad phenols and fusel alcohols that will never go away
 
Awesome. Thanks for the input man. I'll make the adjustments you recommend. This was my first attempt at making my own recipe, probably doing it a bit premature as this is only my first batch, but it sounded fun.

Does 2 weeks in primary and two weeks in secondary sound right for this? And then how long for bottle conditioning? 4 weeks?
 
However many days it takes for fermentation is how long it should stay in the primary, secondary for 7the or so days on the hops

I wouldnt keep it in the fermenters for more than 21 days
 
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