Brewing Master

Question:

72F is a bit on the warm side, but bannana like smell out of the airlock is normal.   With British ale yeasts I usually get a bannana smell and a couple of days later I get a rotten egg type smell…..   Beer has always turned out ok. EK – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Hi, I’m quite new to homebrewing, but adventurous and full of questions. I’ll put them in separate posts so they can have appropriate subject lines on them . I just hope people don’t get sick of the sound of my voice. I’ve currently got a partial-mash stout going, made more-or-less according to the Beamish recipe in Wheeler’s "Brew Your Own Real Ale At Home" (pale malt, wheat malt, light malt extract, roast barley, chocolate malt, sugar). I pitched White Labs British Ale yeast (WLP005) because my local homebrew shop was out of the Irish Ale strain. It’s been fermenting for about 3 days at a fairly constant 22 deg C (72F), which I believe is within the recommended range for the strain and about as cool as I can get it without going to some lengths (it’s starting to get hot here in Australia and the fermenter has a wet T-shirt on already). What worries me is that I’ve noticed quite a distinct banana ester type smell coming up through the airlock and what I would like to know is, Is my beer going to taste funny? and; Is this caused by too high of a temperature or is it just a characteristic of the yeast strain? In other words, should I bring in a fan or a tray of ice for the next batch, or just wait until I can get some real Irish Ale yeast before I make my next stout? Cheers, Rodd

Response:

My method is a water bath.  If one adds ice, the water level will rise when the ice melts, and spill onto the floor.  Not a good idea in the house. Solution: BlueIce (Gott/RubberMaid).  One group of chunks cooling the fermenter in its MuckBucket (RubberMaid), the other freezing in the freezer.  Swap chunks twice a day. Bath temp stays right at 65*F, though I’ve not gauged the wort/beer. A definite improvement over plain old room temperature. clk

The water should not spill on the floor when the ice melts unless the ice is being held up by something other than water. Medford, NY swap net.optonline to reply via e-mail

Response:

Well — until you put in the next batch.  Then the next. Perhaps you’d like a drain means. BlueIce volume is removed each exchange. Works for me — clk

Response:

Well — until you put in the next batch.  Then the next. Perhaps you’d like a drain means. BlueIce volume is removed each exchange. Works for me — clk

I use blue ice all the time for different things. I’m not saying that it won’t work. It works fine. My  point is that melting ice will not make the vessel over flow unless it’s  supported by something other than water. I just recreated my third grade science experiment on "why does ice float".  Take a glass. break the surface tension by rubbing some detergent on the lip. Fill it with water. Put in an ice cube. Clean up the overflow. Wait for it to melt. It won’t overflow. Don’t confuse the condensation with overflow Ice is roughly 0.9 the density of water. Medford, NY swap net.optonline to reply via e-mail

Response:

My method is a water bath.  If one adds ice, the water level will rise when the ice melts, and spill onto the floor.  Not a good idea in the house.

The water level will not rise when the ice melts.  This is a common fallacy. Try it with a glass of ice water.

Response:

Okay, so Hans and Ed both think my beer is too warm, and I think they’re probably right. So the question is, what’s the best way to keep my brew cool without buying a brewing refrigerator and temp. control? (which I don’t have space for) I’ve got a wet shirt on it, but it doesn’t seem to make a lot of difference. Should I point a fan at it too? I’ve heard of people dropping sanitized PET bottles of ice into the fermenter, but I’m reluctant to open it and disturb the nice clean conditions inside until I’m ready to rack to a secondary. I’m also worried that the very cold region near the ice would shock the yeast and adversely affect the fermentation. Apart from shutting down the home brewery for a few months, what do other Aussies and people from warm climes do to cool their brew? – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Hi Rodd, I think both your yeast strain and the temperature is a problem. Some strains produce more banana then others. Each strain produces more esters at higher temperatures. I’ve had the same problem with Wyeast 1214 at 23