thegrantickle
Regular.
- Joined
- Nov 2, 2020
- Messages
- 299
- Reaction score
- 149
Hi guys,
So I have been fermenting a wheat beer this week, trying to push the banana esters as hard as I can. I used WYeast 3638. Malt bill was basically 70% malted wheat & 30% pils. Hopped it lightly with Mandarina Bavaria.
I decided to open ferment this beer, but did so in my fermentation fridge, which was all thoroughly sanitised prior to putting in the bucket. I also had temp control to hold it at 23.5C, again to encourage maximum ester production. I also underpitched the yeast at a rate of about 2/3 and did not aerate the wort in any way, and minimised splashing when transferring from kettle to fermenter.
After 2 days, I opened the fridge to see how it was getting on, and it gave me a massive waft of banana when opening the fridge door. I drew off a sample from the tap and this had a great banana flavour also.
After 3 days, it had hit 50% attenuation, and I top cropped, being super careful to sanitise the spoon etc. I only took the top layer off, leaving some krausen all over the beer.
Checked it after 5 & 6 days and the attenuation has stalled at 1.021 (expected FG 1.014), and there is also a nasty smell coming off the beer now. It smells really really funky, and ha almost almost all banana aroma is gone. The new aroma is kind of like sourdough bread which has been allowed to prove too long - slightly sour. Taking a sample now it doesn't taste terrible, but has a slight yogurt flavour to it. And disappointingly, not a lot of banana.
My thoughts are:
a) it's just dying yeast and the reason for the stalled attenuation is the double decoction mash, meaning less fermentable sugars than brewer's friend predicted
b) it's an infection, possibly lactobacillus or acetobacter which could have been airborne and introduced when opening the fridge to check it. I've not put a lid and airlock on the bucket to minimise oxygen in case it is indeed acetobacter - this should stop it getting much worse.
So, bottle it, and hope that it's just yeast and it will clean up in conditioning, or think about converting it into a sour beer (imperial berliner weisse?)
Thoughts?
So I have been fermenting a wheat beer this week, trying to push the banana esters as hard as I can. I used WYeast 3638. Malt bill was basically 70% malted wheat & 30% pils. Hopped it lightly with Mandarina Bavaria.
I decided to open ferment this beer, but did so in my fermentation fridge, which was all thoroughly sanitised prior to putting in the bucket. I also had temp control to hold it at 23.5C, again to encourage maximum ester production. I also underpitched the yeast at a rate of about 2/3 and did not aerate the wort in any way, and minimised splashing when transferring from kettle to fermenter.
After 2 days, I opened the fridge to see how it was getting on, and it gave me a massive waft of banana when opening the fridge door. I drew off a sample from the tap and this had a great banana flavour also.
After 3 days, it had hit 50% attenuation, and I top cropped, being super careful to sanitise the spoon etc. I only took the top layer off, leaving some krausen all over the beer.
Checked it after 5 & 6 days and the attenuation has stalled at 1.021 (expected FG 1.014), and there is also a nasty smell coming off the beer now. It smells really really funky, and ha almost almost all banana aroma is gone. The new aroma is kind of like sourdough bread which has been allowed to prove too long - slightly sour. Taking a sample now it doesn't taste terrible, but has a slight yogurt flavour to it. And disappointingly, not a lot of banana.
My thoughts are:
a) it's just dying yeast and the reason for the stalled attenuation is the double decoction mash, meaning less fermentable sugars than brewer's friend predicted
b) it's an infection, possibly lactobacillus or acetobacter which could have been airborne and introduced when opening the fridge to check it. I've not put a lid and airlock on the bucket to minimise oxygen in case it is indeed acetobacter - this should stop it getting much worse.
So, bottle it, and hope that it's just yeast and it will clean up in conditioning, or think about converting it into a sour beer (imperial berliner weisse?)
Thoughts?
