I brew under my house and my only clock never got changed with daylight savings 2 weeks ago. The IPA I was brewing was rushed when my wife told me what time it was and I had to leave to go see Ohio vs. South Florida. I was in the process of chilling my wort and only got it to about 92 degrees. I matched my yeast to that temperature and pitched it. This was last Sunday so my IPA has been sitting in primary for 5-6 days. It was bubbling nicely for about 3 days (which I expected pitching at 90+). Since I my primary is also my bottling bucket, I could not see if a krausen was present. I was checking the gravity tonight and going to move it to secondary and I noticed a smell. It's kind of a Band Aid smell. The taste isn't great but it doesn't seem bad enough to dump. I want to try and save it. The current gravity is 1.018. Should I: 1. add more yeast 2. do not add yeast and rack it to secondary 3. dry hop the crap out of it 4. some combination of 1, 2, and 3
Let it set. Anything bad is done, and if you got Fidel's or phenolics, not much will change that. Leave it on as much yeast as possible so they can clean up as much as possible, and never, ever pitch at 92 again. :-)
Thanks. Any chance jokelahoma implies you being a Texas fan? That was a bad series of events. I lost an hour due to daylight savings, it was my first AG batch so I was chilling twice as much liquid as I'm used to, my first-use homemade wort chiller wasn't working as well as I hoped. I don't expect to have to rush it again but should it happen, will the wort be ok if I cover it and let it hang without pitching the yeast right away?
Not a Texas fan. KU fan . Just got stuck in western Oklahoma for two years (Enid) and hated every second of it. Nice state, terrible city. And no worries on the beer. It happens. That's what I love about the hobby. The next one is always better.
Yikes. If you pitched above 90 degrees, that batch of beer is toast man. It's going to taste worse than it smells and there is nothing you can do to fix it. You should have finished your brewday before moving on to a basketball game. Any idea how long it took to reach 68? Did it drop below 70 at all within the first day?? Many might tell you to give it time but in all honesty, your beer is likely not drinkable. If it were me I would call it a loss and plan another batch. And yes, in the future if a real emergency comes up and you can't complete the chilling process, (and I mean an emergency. Like wife in labor or child with broken limb.) you should cover the wort tightly and pitch the yeast later on.
well, in the future there is no harm in letting your wort come down from 90 slowly, and walking away from it only to return to it a few hours later is not going to cause that much harm. some folks might disagree, but i would have simply placed the lid on top. filled the sink around it with cold water and pitched the yeast at a lower temp. what yeast did you use, some are more forgiving then others. right now i would do nothing and give it at least 3 weeks to condition on the yeast cake. also since it is a IPA, dry hopping might mask some of the off flavours. but like i said give it time before you do anything.
I used the Muntons dried yeast packet that came with the kit. All of my experience has been with Brewers Best kits that come with Nottingham dried yeast packets. The Muntons didn't have any directions so I prepared as though I was using Nottingham. I know now to use a good yeast such as WL or WY. OG was 1.052 at 92* which converts to 1.056. Mash temp was an average of 155*; target was 153*. Back sparged at 156*.
***UPDATE*** The batch isn't perfect but it's definitely drinkable. I had some friends try it also. One noticed something was off but didn't know what. He still finished the bottle and has since gone through two more of his six pack. The other liked it and finished all six in one weekend. Maybe I was looking for something to be wrong since I knew I wasn't doing it correctly. As they say, "you are your own worst critic." I racked it to secondary after a week since I wasn't screening my hot and cold break at that point in my brewing career. I dry hopped it twice, 1 oz. for 10 days and added a second 1 oz. for 5 days. Bottle conditioned it for 3 weeks.
