Too many esters

[bkboiler]

So I have a fairly new brew rig that I made and I'm still learning my way around.

--A couple weeks ago I did a double brew day:a pale ale and a porter.

Long story short, I should have taken a better temp measurement, I trusted the BK thermometer after chilling and then oxygenated and pitched yeast into a wort that was much warm...

Both beers are very estery and taste somewhat sour or twangy. I definitely taste diacetyl in the pale, it's already kegged, so I'm bringing it up to temp to hopefully rouse the yeast to clean up a bit.

Im gonna probably do the same for the porter...

In a week, if it still tastes horrible, I'm contemplating putting some medium toast oak in both kegs and also some vanilla extract in the porter.
I've oaked IPAs before and liked it (but those were good beers before the oak).

Other ideas?

Maybe boil a small amount of water with cocoa powder and add that to the porter? Bourbon?

At this point I'm willing to try anything as I've made this mistake far more times in the past than I care to admit and it resulted in dumping the batch most of the time.

Thanks in advance for any suggestions offered!

 

[CascadesBrewer]

Both beers are very estery and taste somewhat sour or twangy. I definitely taste diacetyl in the pale, it's already kegged, so I'm bringing it up to temp to hopefully rouse the yeast to clean up a bit.

You should be able to clean up diacetyl (which I would not really expect in a beer fermented too warm) but esters from fermentation are probably to stay. I am not sure about "sour or twangy" as that points more toward infection/wild yeast to me. What yeast are you using?

In the past when I have tried to "fix" beers I generally just felt I was wasting time and effort and often just made the issue worse. It might be better to treat this as an opportunity to learn and improve your next batch.

 

[Vale71]

You should be able to clean up diacetyl (which I would not really expect in a beer fermented too warm) ...

It's exactly what I'd expect in a beer that was pitched too warm and then quickly (but not quickly enough) chilled to more normal fermentation temps, which is what I'm assuming happened here.

 

[bkboiler]

Got the pale ale warming up at the moment....gonna retaste in a few days

Porter is just chilling...doubting that warming it up would help the esther situation.

 

[bkboiler]

Held the beers fairly warm, probably 75F to get any last yeast activity to help cleanup some of the off flavors. After a few days I tasted and it improved. So a few more days later I tasted and it was basically the same.
Chilled it for the past few days and hooked back up to gas.
The neighbors came over for an impromptu hangout yesterday and I gave samples of the pale ale. The consensus was "not bad". I'll take it... Even if they were just being nice.

I haven't tapped the porter since chilling...may retaste in a few days...I think maybe I botched the water adjustments...

 

[bkboiler]

Tasted the porter and pale ale tonight and I'm finally satisfied enough that they are drinkable.
I think it was a combination of:
1. Bad mash temp stability
2.rehydrated my dry yeast in DI H2O, which is apparently a no-no
3. Kegged too early
4. didnt pay attention to final beer pH when making my water adjustments...
Oh well! Next batches should be better!
Thanks to those who gave input!