I kegged my pilsner last week and I have drank it twice now. Both times I noticed I felt way more buzzed than I should have from a 5% beer and had a headache about half an hour after. The day after I still have a headache and feel hungover. One time I had two glasses and the other time I had 1 glass. I wasn't dehydrated or anything, seemed like a regular day. I also didn't drink any other alchohol with it. I can drink my other beers fine, I don't get that buzzed effect or headaches from them.
The beer does NOT taste "hot" or solventy like you would expect from excess fusel alcohols. I also don't taste any green apple/cidery flavors so I don't think it had excess acetaldehyde either. The beer honestly tastes great, it just gives me a headache.
I did some research and found that this can be caused by fusel alcohol production. If this is is the case, is there anything I can do salvage this beer? I was thinking of pitching a brett blend, as it might turn those higher alchohols into some tasty esters?
The recipe was pretty basic:
8lbs Pils
1lb Rye malt
2oz CaraBohemian
Pekko for bittering
~4 oz Saaz from 30 minutes - 5 minutes
Mash ph was 5.4, I didn't use any salts in the water, just a little bit of lactic acid and campden tablet.
My wort aeration consists of transferring from the kettle via autosiphon (which we all know aerates just fine). I always try to splash the wort around as it comes out of the tubing. I've never had an issue with any of my lagers (or ales) using this method. My starters I just do intermittent shaking.
I harvested about 12oz of 34/70 slurry from a rauchbier that I had kegged the day before brewing the pilsner. The rauchbier turned out awesome! No fusel or headache problem, very smooth. The slurry was just a big scoop from the bottom of the fermenter, so it had trub and all that gunk in it as well. I put this into a 1L starter with some yeast nutrient the same day I harvested (day before before brewing the pils)
After brewing the pils, I put it in my chamber with the regulator set to 50F, I got impatient waiting and pitched the starter when the wort was at 60F.
A krausen was noticed the next day. After 3 days I bumped the temp to hover between 52-54F. On day 4 I noticed the fermentation slowing down, I bumped the temp up again to 54-56F. On day 6 58-60F. On day 7 58-60F. It stayed there until day 10, where I began to cold crash.
One weird thing is that the final gravity turned out way low at 1.004. I was expecting something more like 1.012. I'm still not sure what happened, but thought maybe my first runnings sat for too long while waiting for my batch sparge to heat up? The beta amylase may have chewed down whatever alpha was making. This is still a mystery. I did a protein rest which ended up around 130F and my mash temp was like 160F (I overshot both, was going for 125F and 154F). My thermometer and hydrometer have been checked and are working fine.
Did I pitch too warm or did I ramp up too fast? I thought 34/70 was fairly tolerant, but this was a slurry harvest so maybe the second generation is more picky than the first? I used a similar schedule for the rauchbier fermentation, but it got the first generation of the yeast.
The beer does NOT taste "hot" or solventy like you would expect from excess fusel alcohols. I also don't taste any green apple/cidery flavors so I don't think it had excess acetaldehyde either. The beer honestly tastes great, it just gives me a headache.
I did some research and found that this can be caused by fusel alcohol production. If this is is the case, is there anything I can do salvage this beer? I was thinking of pitching a brett blend, as it might turn those higher alchohols into some tasty esters?
The recipe was pretty basic:
8lbs Pils
1lb Rye malt
2oz CaraBohemian
Pekko for bittering
~4 oz Saaz from 30 minutes - 5 minutes
Mash ph was 5.4, I didn't use any salts in the water, just a little bit of lactic acid and campden tablet.
My wort aeration consists of transferring from the kettle via autosiphon (which we all know aerates just fine). I always try to splash the wort around as it comes out of the tubing. I've never had an issue with any of my lagers (or ales) using this method. My starters I just do intermittent shaking.
I harvested about 12oz of 34/70 slurry from a rauchbier that I had kegged the day before brewing the pilsner. The rauchbier turned out awesome! No fusel or headache problem, very smooth. The slurry was just a big scoop from the bottom of the fermenter, so it had trub and all that gunk in it as well. I put this into a 1L starter with some yeast nutrient the same day I harvested (day before before brewing the pils)
After brewing the pils, I put it in my chamber with the regulator set to 50F, I got impatient waiting and pitched the starter when the wort was at 60F.
A krausen was noticed the next day. After 3 days I bumped the temp to hover between 52-54F. On day 4 I noticed the fermentation slowing down, I bumped the temp up again to 54-56F. On day 6 58-60F. On day 7 58-60F. It stayed there until day 10, where I began to cold crash.
One weird thing is that the final gravity turned out way low at 1.004. I was expecting something more like 1.012. I'm still not sure what happened, but thought maybe my first runnings sat for too long while waiting for my batch sparge to heat up? The beta amylase may have chewed down whatever alpha was making. This is still a mystery. I did a protein rest which ended up around 130F and my mash temp was like 160F (I overshot both, was going for 125F and 154F). My thermometer and hydrometer have been checked and are working fine.
Did I pitch too warm or did I ramp up too fast? I thought 34/70 was fairly tolerant, but this was a slurry harvest so maybe the second generation is more picky than the first? I used a similar schedule for the rauchbier fermentation, but it got the first generation of the yeast.
