High temps in secondary

[jeffpgil]

I had a 5 gallon batch of a brown ale in my secondary fermenter and my A/C unit broke while I was out of town. I came home and my house was at 87 degrees! Could have been as long as 48 hours.

Is this going to have horrible effects on the results??

 

[freisste]

My understanding is that it is most critical early in fermentation. If you already moved to secondary, it is likely fine. Certainly a good enough chance that you should NOT dump it, so all you can do is wait and RDWHAHB.

 

[jeffpgil]

My understanding is that it is most critical early in fermentation. If you already moved to secondary, it is likely fine. Certainly a good enough chance that you should NOT dump it, so all you can do is wait and RDWHAHB.

That's what I am hoping! My only worry too and I didn't mention this in my first post, but it looks like there was some activity because there was a little trub at the bottom. This is my first batch using a secondary so I am not sure if its normal.

 

[BigFloyd]

Did you check (as you should) to make sure that it had reached FG before racking it to the secondary? If so, your chance of seeing few, if any, bad problems from the really high temps is much better.

Just curious - was there a particular reason that you went to a secondary on a brown ale?

 

[jeffpgil]

Did you check (as you should) to make sure that it had reached FG before racking it to the secondary? If so, your chance of seeing few, if any, bad problems from the really high temps is much better.

Just curious - was there a particular reason that you went to a secondary on a brown ale?

Ok, I checked the FG before racking to secondary so I think I should be good! The only reason I went to secondary is because the recipe called for 2-4 weeks of it. I'm out of town for the next couple anyway so I didn't have time to bottle.

Thanks y'all for the help. Hopefully it's OK!

 

[boydster]

You should be fine. From what I understand, the esters and fusels that we worry about at higher temperatures can't really be generated once the yeast is done fermenting. They are, after all, fermentation byproducts. As long as you were at the actual final gravity (same gravity reading for 3 or more days) you'll be OK.

 

[BigFloyd]

Glad to hear you got to FG before it got hot.

BTW, a whole lot of brewers (me included) skip the secondary regardless of what recipe sheets say unless there's a particular reason (like dry hopping or adding something) for it. Simply let it ferment in the primary to FG plus a few days (to clean up), cold crash to clarify (if you can) and then keg/bottle.

 

[jeffpgil]

Glad to hear you got to FG before it got hot.

BTW, a whole lot of brewers (me included) skip the secondary regardless of what recipe sheets say unless there's a particular reason (like dry hopping or adding something) for it. Simply let it ferment in the primary to FG plus a few days (to clean up), cold crash to clarify (if you can) and then keg/bottle.

So what exactly is a cold crash? I assume bringing temps down for a couple days or something? Any recommended length or temp? (Which I can do now that I have a freezer with to control)

 

[BansheeRider]

So what exactly is a cold crash? I assume bringing temps down for a couple days or something? Any recommended length or temp? (Which I can do now that I have a freezer with to control)

https://www.google.com/search?q=what+is+cold+crashing&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en&client=safari